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In September 1939,

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the Nazis invaded Poland,
and Britain declared war on Germany.

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MUSIC: Symphony No. 5
by Ludwig van Beethoven

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Two months later, Hitler retaliated
with a musical missile.

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In a bierkeller packed full
of the party faithful,

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Hitler fired up his audience.

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"Beethoven," he said,

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"has produced more of cultural worth
than all the English put together."

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In boasting about Beethoven,

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Hitler was championing German
superiority and mocking what he saw

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as pitiful British inadequacy.

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In the tumultuous conflict
that followed,

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music would become a weapon of war.

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And both sides would use it.

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During the war, Beethoven's most
famous four notes were transmitted

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nightly over the airwaves, not by
the Germans, but by the British.

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In Morse code, dah-dah-dah-daaah -
dot, dot, dot, dash - means "V".

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That's V for victory.
It was a clever ruse -

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to take Germany's musical signature
tune and turn it into a two-fingered

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symbol of Allied defiance.

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In this programme,

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I'll explore how World War II
was more than a military fight.

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It was an ideological battle
in which both sides used music

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to secure their vision
for civilisation.

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I'll discover how radio
and film music were used

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to get the patriotic blood pumping.

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Immediately you've got rolling
English countryside and planes in
the sky

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and, I mean, he just knew how to
write these big patriotic tunes.

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I'll show how smash hits of the day
were intentionally twisted to try

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and weaken the enemy.

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MUSIC: Let's Go Shelling
by Charlie & His Orchestra

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Out of Let's Go Slumming,
they made Let's Go Shelling.

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"Let's go shell Churchill
and the women and the kids."

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And I'll confront music's abuse
as a tool of persecution

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and how it became
a means to survive.

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This was a life lived from day to
day and we were very well aware that

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as long as they want us, it'd be
stupid to put us in the gas chamber.

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In this series, I've been exposing
music's unrivalled capacity

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to manipulate us.

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During World War II,

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music would become more contested
and corrupted but also perhaps

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more vital, even transcendent,
than ever before.

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In the Second World War,
the authorities tried

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to keep strict tabs on the music
people listened to.

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# We'll meet again, don't know
where, don't know when... #

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In Britain, that even affected the
Forces' Sweetheart, Vera Lynn,

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with her signature tune,
We'll Meet Again.

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# Keep smiling through,
just like you always do

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# Till the blue skies chase
the dark clouds far away... #

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We'll Meet Again is still a classic
"get round the old Joanna" number

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and it's incredibly easy to sing.

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And while it might seem a little
bit schmaltzy to us today,

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its wartime message of yearning and
hope really struck a chord with

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people who feared they might
never see their loved ones again.

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# ..And I will just say hello to the
folks that you know...

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In 1942, these fears
were being keenly felt.

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In February, Britain lost Singapore.

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Months later, they suffered
humiliating defeats in North Africa.

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And, extraordinarily,

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some thought Vera Lynn should
take her share of the blame.

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During these tough times,

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Vera and her apparently innocuous
songs came under intense scrutiny.

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Was she really helping
the war effort?

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Amid military setbacks,

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and with questions being raised
in Parliament,

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the BBC set up the Dance Music
Policy Committee,

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to police Vera Lynn
and her kind of music.

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This is a copy of the original
statement issued by the committee

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to BBC staff, to the press,
bandleaders and publishers,

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and it instructs them...

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"Performance by women singers will
be controlled to the extent that an

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"insincere and oversentimental style
will not be allowed.

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"No numbers will be accepted for
broadcasting which are slushy in
sentiment."

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So, Vera Lynn, despite
her starriness and popularity...

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Well, singing about bluebirds over
the white cliffs of Dover really

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wasn't going to cut the mustard.

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MUSIC: The White Cliffs Of Dover
by Vera Lynn

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Vera's BBC radio show,
Sincerely Yours,

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was taken off the air.

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This was a full-blown moral panic.

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There'd been a series of letters
to the Daily Telegraph,

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where the type of music that Vera
Lynn sang was described as being a

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"flabby amusement", um...

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Flabby amusement?

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Flabby... A flabby amusement. It's
so incredibly sort of looking down

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your nose at it.
Absolutely, absolutely.

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The British kind of emotional
culture really emphasises stoicism

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and if you are lonely, if you are
grieving, if you are anxious,

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you keep this to yourself.

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If you give way to these
emotions in public,

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it is not only going to
undermine morale at home,

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it's going to undermine
morale with the troops.

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What, so the Brits might well have
lost Singapore because they listened

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to Vera Lynn,
that was what went wrong?!

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I think that's part of the concern
here, yeah, yeah.

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So, I can't listen to slushy, croony
ballads - what can I listen to?

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Well, you can listen to the kinds of
songs that they had on programmes

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like Music While You Work,
which went out every morning.

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Workers' Playtime,

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so sort of songs that people would
recognise and could sing along to,

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while they were working.
So music that makes you feel a part

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of a collective.

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One of the BBC's responses was
to put out a programme called

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I Am John Citizen,

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which was a male singer with a very
male kind of masculine choir,

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a leather-lunged choir,
I think they were described as.

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Sorry, a leather-lunged...?
What is a leather-lunged choir?

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It sounds revolting!
Yeah, I think...

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It wasn't very popular,
it didn't last very long.

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I don't imagine
they'd sound brilliant.

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"Yeah, I've got to get tickets
to hear that leather-lunged choir."

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The policy was failing.

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In spite of the BBC diktat, Vera
was just too big a star to silence.

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In 1943, she kicked back,

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making her film debut with a rather
familiar title and theme tune.

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# We'll meet again... #

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As the film made clear,

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mushy morale-boosters
like Vera Lynn's

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were exactly what British civilians
and soldiers did need.

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I can hear the butcher boy
whistling it already.

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It's lovely. That's good.
There's sunshine in it.

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And British audiences weren't the
only ones to appreciate the power

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of a heart-tugging tune.

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SHE SINGS IN GERMAN

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The Great Love was Nazi Germany's
biggest hit film,

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and it's full of sentimental songs.

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This is Germany's
highest-paid musical star,

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the Nazi's answer to Vera Lynn,

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screen siren Zarah Leander.

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Sure enough, she had her own
signature tune and, like Vera,

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she sang it in a film.

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Just have a listen to this, the
lyrics are remarkably familiar.

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I absolutely love this,

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it has all of that
We'll Meet Again sentimentality,

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only here it is vamped
and camped up to the max.

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This is no Vera Lynn,
girl next door,

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but a statuesque Teutonic goddess.

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And if you wanted evidence that this
had the Nazi seal of approval,

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look no further than
the accompanying angels.

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They're actually SS guards in drag.

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It was the ideal Nazi chorus line,
imposing and perfectly uniform.

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Not surprisingly,
there were no close-ups

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on those "ladies"
with their five o'clock shadows.

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MUSIC: Symphony No. 5
by Ludwig van Beethoven

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Throughout the war, the Nazis would
draw time and again on Germany's

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peerless musical heritage.

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Hitler favourites, including
Beethoven, Bruckner and Wagner,

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became the soundtrack to
cinematic newsreels promoting

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German military triumphs.

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BEETHOVEN CONTINUES

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And, convinced of their supremacy
in both war and art,

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the Nazis repeated
an old German taunt,

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that Britain was "das Land ohne
Musik" - the land without music.

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But we hit back.

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With the film,
The First Of The Few,

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the British proved more than able to
coin an instant patriotic classic.

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There are all the ingredients here
for a great British blockbuster.

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There's the aviation film unit,

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silver screen idols
Leslie Howard and David Niven,

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there are real-life RAF pilots
who joined the cast -

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but what this film did was really
stir the nation's heart with its

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thrilling soundtrack,
by William Walton.

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Walton was a pillar of
the musical establishment.

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Dubbed Head Prefect
by fellow composers,

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he'd written George VI's
Coronation March.

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With these credentials,

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Walton had been exempted from
military service and deployed

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instead to write film music.

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But despite it getting him
off the battlefield,

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Walton himself was slightly sniffy
about writing propaganda music

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for the movies.

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That said, he was very good at it,
and his music's still admired

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by film composers today.

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The tune for The First Of The Few
is...is embarrassingly simple.

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Go on, then. And so it's
simply within the five notes,

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the first bit...

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And then he even repeats it.

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Same thing again. But, I mean,
a child could play that.

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I was going to say, that's the kind
of thing you'd play after three
piano lessons, you'd be... Exactly.

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You'd be in there going,
"I can play this stuff."

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But then, how does he make it
patriotic and how does he make it
different?

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It's that famous
descending bassline.

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Which, again, couldn't
be simpler on its own.

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But then you put the two together...

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And immediately you've got rolling
English countryside and planes

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in the sky and, I mean...
why is that?

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But I think there's something about
that descending bassline that says

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thoroughly honest, dependable stuff.

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It's... Absolutely. It is
stiff upper lip Britishness.

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And also the thing with a descending
bassline is that it suggests some

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00:14:46,100 --> 00:14:49,340
kind of journey. You're going
through a sequence, you're...

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And to come out the
other end successfully.

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00:15:06,020 --> 00:15:08,220
Even from the beginning
of this piece,

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there is that rousing fanfare
that just feels very spirited,

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bulldog British and then, lyrical
loveliness, it's sort of all there.

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Absolutely, but there again, that
fanfare couldn't be simpler.

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00:15:18,780 --> 00:15:21,220
It's a C major triad,
that's all he does at the beginning.

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00:15:23,420 --> 00:15:25,460
So, he starts with that.

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00:15:25,460 --> 00:15:27,940
But then he gets a little bit sexy.

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00:15:27,940 --> 00:15:29,780
And then we get the romantic
chord...

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Oof! Scrunchy!
And then what happens now?

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The strings! Strings come in
and there we go.

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His tunes are exactly like the tunes
that John Williams is now writing

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for the Spielberg movies,
like Hans Zimmer is writing.

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00:15:54,140 --> 00:15:57,780
They're immediately accessible,
they tug at our heartstrings,

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00:15:57,780 --> 00:16:01,700
it's instant emotion, and that's
so hard to do as a composer.

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00:16:01,700 --> 00:16:05,060
Um, I'm a little bit jealous,
actually, I think he was

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just too good, you know.

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00:16:14,540 --> 00:16:16,300
Even more than cinema,

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radio allowed millions to share
the soundtrack to national identity.

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00:16:27,820 --> 00:16:34,020
This was the Nazis' Broadcasting
House in Berlin, completed in 1933,

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00:16:34,020 --> 00:16:36,140
the year after Britain's own BBC HQ.

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00:16:41,260 --> 00:16:45,700
In the war, this vast Art Deco
palace became the epicentre

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00:16:45,700 --> 00:16:49,020
of the Nazis' hi-tech
musical propaganda machine.

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00:16:55,700 --> 00:17:00,940
"What newspapers were to the
19th-century, radio will be to the
20th."

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00:17:00,940 --> 00:17:04,260
That prediction could have been made
by the BBC's Lord Reith,

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00:17:04,260 --> 00:17:06,380
but this was
Joseph Goebbels talking,

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00:17:06,380 --> 00:17:10,340
the Minister for Public
Enlightenment and Propaganda.

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00:17:10,340 --> 00:17:13,740
German radio would have to do
more than just inform,

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00:17:13,740 --> 00:17:15,700
educate and entertain,

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00:17:15,700 --> 00:17:19,660
it would carry the hopes and
aspirations of the Nazi state.

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00:17:19,660 --> 00:17:21,900
It would be, as Goebbels put it,

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00:17:21,900 --> 00:17:25,220
the mediator between the movement
and the nation,

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00:17:25,220 --> 00:17:28,260
between "the idea", and man.

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00:17:31,220 --> 00:17:35,420
That mission meant cleansing the
airwaves of any music the Nazis

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00:17:35,420 --> 00:17:38,940
considered degenerate -
anything Jewish or black,

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00:17:38,940 --> 00:17:41,140
especially jazz and swing,

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00:17:41,140 --> 00:17:44,300
and instead promoting folksy
songs and the classics.

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00:17:48,740 --> 00:17:50,540
After their rise to power,

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the Nazis had flooded Germany with
over nine million cheap radio sets.

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00:17:56,700 --> 00:18:01,380
But radio didn't just plant the
right values in home audiences,

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00:18:01,380 --> 00:18:04,740
it could be used as a weapon
to attack the enemy abroad.

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00:18:08,220 --> 00:18:12,140
So, what did the Nazis pick from
their musical arsenal to launch

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00:18:12,140 --> 00:18:13,580
at the British?

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00:18:16,020 --> 00:18:20,220
A bit of Wagner, some thigh-slapping
German folk tunes?

236
00:18:20,220 --> 00:18:23,180
No, they decided on
a little light swing.

237
00:18:26,740 --> 00:18:28,980
TO THE TUNE OF YOU'RE THE TOP:

238
00:18:37,820 --> 00:18:39,740
While the tune might sound familiar,

239
00:18:39,740 --> 00:18:41,740
the lyrics are a
little more unusual.

240
00:18:53,700 --> 00:18:56,660
After all, Cole Porter isn't known
for peppering his verses

241
00:18:56,660 --> 00:18:58,860
with machine guns and U-boats.

242
00:18:58,860 --> 00:19:03,060
But this is one of the Third Reich's
most bizarre cultural experiments -

243
00:19:03,060 --> 00:19:06,020
Nazified cover versions,

244
00:19:06,020 --> 00:19:09,500
arranged and performed
by a hand-picked band,

245
00:19:09,500 --> 00:19:10,940
Charlie And His Orchestra.

246
00:19:13,980 --> 00:19:16,500
Hitler himself had endorsed
the playlist.

247
00:19:16,500 --> 00:19:19,020
In 1942, he issued a memo,

248
00:19:19,020 --> 00:19:22,780
stating that broadcasts aimed at
England had to feature the kind of

249
00:19:22,780 --> 00:19:25,460
music that the British really loved.

250
00:19:31,820 --> 00:19:34,540
# Let's go slumming

251
00:19:34,540 --> 00:19:36,500
# Take me slumming

252
00:19:37,940 --> 00:19:42,260
# Let's go slumming
on Park Avenue... #

253
00:19:42,260 --> 00:19:44,220
The original songs,

254
00:19:44,220 --> 00:19:47,340
like Irving Berlin's
Slumming On Park Avenue,

255
00:19:47,340 --> 00:19:49,860
were all popular hits
on British radio.

256
00:19:49,860 --> 00:19:54,900
# ..And make faces when a member of
the classes passes... #

257
00:19:54,900 --> 00:19:59,420
And as tunes like this were banned
in Germany, Charlie's bandleader,

258
00:19:59,420 --> 00:20:02,500
Lutz Templin, was given special
licence to tune into

259
00:20:02,500 --> 00:20:05,940
British radio stations for
inspiration.

260
00:20:05,940 --> 00:20:09,860
# Let us go to it, they do it
Why can't we do it too? #

261
00:20:09,860 --> 00:20:12,940
Then, with the help of the British
traitor turned Nazi broadcaster,

262
00:20:12,940 --> 00:20:16,940
Lord Haw-Haw, the words were
given their own unique spin.

263
00:20:20,380 --> 00:20:22,500
Thank you so much.

264
00:20:22,500 --> 00:20:26,980
Andrej, what a fantastic song,
Irving Berlin classic. Thank you.

265
00:20:26,980 --> 00:20:30,980
What happens to that song
when it comes to Nazi Germany?

266
00:20:30,980 --> 00:20:32,580
Nothing good, actually.

267
00:20:32,580 --> 00:20:36,820
Charlie & His Orchestra was doing
this song with totally different

268
00:20:36,820 --> 00:20:42,180
lyrics. Out of Let's Go Slumming,
they made Let's Go Shelling.

269
00:20:42,180 --> 00:20:45,300
"Let's go shell Churchill
and the women and the kids."

270
00:20:45,300 --> 00:20:49,900
And you have experience yourself
of being in a propaganda unit,

271
00:20:49,900 --> 00:20:54,140
just tell me a bit about what you
did and how you judge Charlie's
efforts.

272
00:20:54,140 --> 00:20:58,460
Well, I was serving in a propaganda
unit in East Germany during the

273
00:20:58,460 --> 00:20:59,740
so-called GDR times,

274
00:20:59,740 --> 00:21:03,100
and we would have been slapped in
the face for such a cheap propaganda

275
00:21:03,100 --> 00:21:05,140
if we would have done this
in East Germany,

276
00:21:05,140 --> 00:21:08,740
and the propaganda of East Germany,
as you know, was also quite high,

277
00:21:08,740 --> 00:21:10,500
but this was very poor, very poor.

278
00:21:10,500 --> 00:21:12,140
It's pretty crude as an attempt.

279
00:21:12,140 --> 00:21:14,900
It is crude and it's bad,
it's just very bad.

280
00:21:14,900 --> 00:21:19,940
I mean, how can you imagine to
convince someone by telling him,

281
00:21:19,940 --> 00:21:22,860
"We will kill your children,
we will kill your women," I mean,

282
00:21:22,860 --> 00:21:26,580
what is this? Is this making you
to say, "Oh, yes, yes, yes!

283
00:21:26,580 --> 00:21:29,580
"Let me change, let me come over
to you"? No, not really.

284
00:21:29,580 --> 00:21:31,900
But the whole purpose behind
Charlie & His Orchestra was

285
00:21:31,900 --> 00:21:35,340
to undermine British and US morale.

286
00:21:35,340 --> 00:21:37,820
I mean, they took it very seriously,
it was not a joke.

287
00:21:37,820 --> 00:21:39,660
The band...the band wasn't bad.

288
00:21:39,660 --> 00:21:42,100
It doesn't sound like a very good
American swing orchestra,

289
00:21:42,100 --> 00:21:43,740
but it sounds like a
very good German one.

290
00:21:43,740 --> 00:21:45,820
What do you mean by that,
what's the difference?

291
00:21:45,820 --> 00:21:49,300
Well, I can always recognise a
German band, it's not as relaxed

292
00:21:49,300 --> 00:21:51,900
and not as swinging as
an American one, you know.

293
00:21:51,900 --> 00:21:53,900
The American soldiers
and the British ones,

294
00:21:53,900 --> 00:21:56,100
they had Glenn Miller
to listen to or Benny Goodman,

295
00:21:56,100 --> 00:21:58,740
so why should they go for Lutz
Templin and his Charlie?

296
00:22:11,700 --> 00:22:13,340
Charlie & His Orchestra

297
00:22:13,340 --> 00:22:15,860
recorded over 250 songs.

298
00:22:19,020 --> 00:22:20,980
But did their musical blitzkrieg

299
00:22:20,980 --> 00:22:23,620
have a negative impact
on British morale?

300
00:22:28,380 --> 00:22:29,860
Not exactly.

301
00:22:29,860 --> 00:22:33,900
This is the Daily Express from the
11th of September 1944, and the

302
00:22:33,900 --> 00:22:36,100
broadcasts get a write-up.

303
00:22:36,100 --> 00:22:37,900
"Lord Haw-Haw's mockery,

304
00:22:37,900 --> 00:22:42,020
"threats and intimidation merely
proved irritating interruptions.

305
00:22:42,020 --> 00:22:44,820
"The musical part of the programme
was excellent."

306
00:22:46,460 --> 00:22:48,900
MUSIC: German National Anthem

307
00:22:54,380 --> 00:22:59,460
The Nazis operated what you might
call a Ctrl-Alt-Delete policy

308
00:22:59,460 --> 00:23:01,900
when it came to music,

309
00:23:01,900 --> 00:23:05,780
controlling the German people with
patriotic numbers like Wagner's

310
00:23:05,780 --> 00:23:06,980
and Zarah Leander's.

311
00:23:08,420 --> 00:23:11,340
Altering music to serve their
purpose, with Nazified swing.

312
00:23:13,300 --> 00:23:16,060
And, if in doubt,
delete - and get rid of it.

313
00:23:19,940 --> 00:23:24,300
Work by Jewish composers and
musicians had already been
eliminated,

314
00:23:24,300 --> 00:23:28,500
but even card-carrying Nazis
weren't immune from the censors.

315
00:23:31,300 --> 00:23:33,780
Take, for example, Hugo Distler.

316
00:23:33,780 --> 00:23:35,540
He was a music teacher,

317
00:23:35,540 --> 00:23:39,180
a composer of mostly religious music
and a choirmaster at the

318
00:23:39,180 --> 00:23:41,980
Berlin Cathedral.
So far, so innocuous.

319
00:23:45,540 --> 00:23:47,900
But Distler repeatedly
came under fire.

320
00:23:49,460 --> 00:23:53,100
After the premiere of this concerto,
he was denounced as degenerate.

321
00:23:59,380 --> 00:24:02,540
The Hitler Youth sabotaged
rehearsals of his choral works.

322
00:24:04,580 --> 00:24:07,220
Increasingly disillusioned
with the Nazi Party,

323
00:24:07,220 --> 00:24:11,180
Distler was desperate not to have
to put on a uniform and go to war.

324
00:24:13,580 --> 00:24:15,740
By October 1942,

325
00:24:15,740 --> 00:24:19,980
Distler had been called up five
times and on each occasion managed

326
00:24:19,980 --> 00:24:22,100
to evade conscription.

327
00:24:22,100 --> 00:24:25,820
But he was certain that the
next call would come soon.

328
00:24:25,820 --> 00:24:27,980
On Sunday the 1st of November,

329
00:24:27,980 --> 00:24:30,100
he conducted the choir
at the cathedral,

330
00:24:30,100 --> 00:24:33,580
went home, turned on the oven
and gassed himself.

331
00:24:35,540 --> 00:24:39,380
One of the most promising
German composers of his generation

332
00:24:39,380 --> 00:24:40,620
had been silenced.

333
00:24:46,900 --> 00:24:49,980
That was the bleak situation
in Germany.

334
00:24:49,980 --> 00:24:51,460
By contrast, in Britain,

335
00:24:51,460 --> 00:24:55,740
if you were a composer raging
against the war and the system,

336
00:24:55,740 --> 00:24:58,460
amazingly enough,
you might get...this place.

337
00:25:12,340 --> 00:25:15,580
In February 1945,
the Royal Albert Hall -

338
00:25:15,580 --> 00:25:18,140
Britain's most prestigious
concert venue -

339
00:25:18,140 --> 00:25:21,380
put on a performance
of Michael Tippett's new oratorio,

340
00:25:21,380 --> 00:25:22,660
A Child Of Our Time.

341
00:25:29,420 --> 00:25:33,860
The auditorium was packed
with war-weary concertgoers,

342
00:25:33,860 --> 00:25:36,060
eager to hear the
classical hit of the day.

343
00:25:42,820 --> 00:25:47,100
A month earlier, the work had been
broadcast to the nation by the BBC.

344
00:25:51,340 --> 00:25:54,860
Being given all that
signalled pretty emphatically

345
00:25:54,860 --> 00:25:57,820
the cultural value
of Tippett's new piece,

346
00:25:57,820 --> 00:26:01,060
and yet the man and his music
went against the grain -

347
00:26:01,060 --> 00:26:04,820
A Child Of Our Time
was unapologetically anti-war.

348
00:26:48,500 --> 00:26:50,660
Tippett, like Hugo Distler,

349
00:26:50,660 --> 00:26:54,500
was a conscientious objector,
and A Child Of Our Time expresses

350
00:26:54,500 --> 00:26:56,580
his pacifism and horror of war.

351
00:27:02,740 --> 00:27:07,460
The child of the title was
Herschel Grynszpan, a young Jew who,

352
00:27:07,460 --> 00:27:10,860
in 1938, had assassinated
a German diplomat,

353
00:27:10,860 --> 00:27:14,780
the trigger for Kristallnacht and
a wave of violence aimed at Jews

354
00:27:14,780 --> 00:27:16,540
across the Reich.

355
00:27:20,380 --> 00:27:23,740
Tippett's message wasn't
simply anti-Nazi,

356
00:27:23,740 --> 00:27:25,980
it wasn't pro-British either.

357
00:27:25,980 --> 00:27:28,900
For him, everyone was culpable.

358
00:27:28,900 --> 00:27:32,020
The whole world had turned
to the dark side.

359
00:27:32,020 --> 00:27:42,420
# ..on its dark side... #

360
00:27:48,780 --> 00:27:53,540
We are a world away here from the
patriotic rallying cry of Walton.

361
00:27:53,540 --> 00:27:58,380
Instead what we get is a warning
of the dire consequences of war.

362
00:27:58,380 --> 00:28:01,340
As the chorus laments,
"It is winter."

363
00:28:15,420 --> 00:28:19,420
Tippett had been vocal about
his pacifism throughout the war.

364
00:28:19,420 --> 00:28:22,500
From 1940 he was director of music

365
00:28:22,500 --> 00:28:24,820
at this London
working men's college.

366
00:28:27,740 --> 00:28:31,460
So this is a selection of newspaper
cuttings and concert programmes that

367
00:28:31,460 --> 00:28:35,500
all relate to Tippett's work here
at Morley College during the war.

368
00:28:35,500 --> 00:28:39,380
At which point he's still a young
man, a man in his 30s,

369
00:28:39,380 --> 00:28:42,380
but a man of incredibly
strongly-held views.

370
00:28:42,380 --> 00:28:44,420
But he does pay a price
for his beliefs.

371
00:28:44,420 --> 00:28:46,620
Yes, ultimately,
he's sent to prison.

372
00:28:46,620 --> 00:28:49,140
He was sent to prison
for three months.

373
00:28:49,140 --> 00:28:50,620
He only served two,

374
00:28:50,620 --> 00:28:52,100
and it's felt that he was treated

375
00:28:52,100 --> 00:28:55,140
very leniently in prison,
he was allowed to put on a concert.

376
00:28:55,140 --> 00:28:58,220
And when he came out, he was able to
go straight from prison to a concert

377
00:28:58,220 --> 00:29:01,820
at the Wigmore Hall, and fit
straight back in
to the musical establishment.

378
00:29:01,820 --> 00:29:05,140
I love that. So, he has his wrists
slapped, but it's pretty
cushy, that -

379
00:29:05,140 --> 00:29:07,380
"Go to prison for three months.
Oh, make it two.

380
00:29:07,380 --> 00:29:09,020
"Oh, have a concert
with your friends."

381
00:29:09,020 --> 00:29:11,420
I mean, it's sort of...
It's not a bad, you know...

382
00:29:11,420 --> 00:29:14,260
Well, of course,
he went to prison with...

383
00:29:14,260 --> 00:29:16,500
having had words of support,

384
00:29:16,500 --> 00:29:19,540
very public words of support from
none other than Vaughan Williams,

385
00:29:19,540 --> 00:29:23,260
who was the grand old man
of English music by that stage.

386
00:29:23,260 --> 00:29:26,340
And here we have Vaughan Williams
quoted in The Times.

387
00:29:26,340 --> 00:29:30,380
"I think Tippett's pacifist views
entirely wrong, but I respect him

388
00:29:30,380 --> 00:29:32,540
"very much for holding them
so firmly.

389
00:29:32,540 --> 00:29:35,180
"I think his compositions
are very remarkable

390
00:29:35,180 --> 00:29:37,060
"and form a distinct
national asset,

391
00:29:37,060 --> 00:29:40,260
"and will increase the prestige of
this country in the world."

392
00:29:40,260 --> 00:29:42,260
So, I mean, that is
really interesting.

393
00:29:42,260 --> 00:29:46,620
There's a sense, what, that just
being a musician is enough to be

394
00:29:46,620 --> 00:29:49,060
part of the war effort, whether you
support the war or not?

395
00:29:49,060 --> 00:29:53,620
Yes. He was already recognised as a
composer of national importance,

396
00:29:53,620 --> 00:29:56,420
but of course, we were
fighting for free speech,

397
00:29:56,420 --> 00:29:59,900
we were fighting for the right
for people to express themselves

398
00:29:59,900 --> 00:30:02,060
artistically with a
great degree of freedom.

399
00:30:13,580 --> 00:30:16,060
MUSIC: Faust
by Charles Gounod

400
00:30:21,860 --> 00:30:24,580
On June the 22nd, 1940,

401
00:30:24,580 --> 00:30:27,980
Germany conquered France after
just six weeks of fighting.

402
00:30:36,140 --> 00:30:39,820
Within a week, Hitler made
a triumphal entry into Paris.

403
00:30:44,740 --> 00:30:47,700
It was to be a mere
three-hour whistle-stop tour.

404
00:30:49,860 --> 00:30:52,660
But there was one place
that he was determined to see.

405
00:30:57,580 --> 00:30:59,980
Hitler was on a musical mission.

406
00:30:59,980 --> 00:31:02,300
His first stop - the Paris Opera.

407
00:31:03,500 --> 00:31:05,660
MUSIC: Carmen
by Georges Bizet

408
00:31:13,300 --> 00:31:16,940
Hitler's chief architect, Albert
Speer, later recalled the visit.

409
00:31:24,740 --> 00:31:28,740
Speer wrote, "We visited the great
stairway with its excessive

410
00:31:28,740 --> 00:31:33,780
"ornamentation, the resplendent
foyer, the elegant, gilded parterre,

411
00:31:33,780 --> 00:31:35,820
"all of them carefully inspected.

412
00:31:35,820 --> 00:31:41,140
"Hitler was fascinated by the opera,
went into ecstasies about its
beauty,

413
00:31:41,140 --> 00:31:45,620
"his eyes glittering with an
excitement that struck me as
uncanny."

414
00:31:48,700 --> 00:31:51,340
Knowing the pride the French took
in their culture,

415
00:31:51,340 --> 00:31:55,660
Hitler used the Opera House as a
billboard to crow over his victory.

416
00:32:01,900 --> 00:32:05,660
But the Fuhrer didn't try
to obliterate French music.

417
00:32:07,900 --> 00:32:10,940
The Germans weren't foolish enough
to think that they could just dump

418
00:32:10,940 --> 00:32:14,140
their own culture onto the French
and that audiences would buy it.

419
00:32:14,140 --> 00:32:16,020
They knew that to keep the peace,

420
00:32:16,020 --> 00:32:18,780
they'd have to allow home-grown
music by French composers

421
00:32:18,780 --> 00:32:21,820
like Bizet, Berlioz and Auber.

422
00:32:21,820 --> 00:32:25,660
Their plan was to show the world
that under Nazi leadership,

423
00:32:25,660 --> 00:32:27,580
French culture was flourishing.

424
00:32:32,660 --> 00:32:37,020
As a member of the barrier-smashing
modernist group, Les Six,

425
00:32:37,020 --> 00:32:39,820
the proudly French composer,
Francis Poulenc,

426
00:32:39,820 --> 00:32:42,700
might well have been considered
a potential troublemaker

427
00:32:42,700 --> 00:32:44,460
by the occupying Nazis.

428
00:32:47,100 --> 00:32:52,300
Nonetheless, in 1942, he premiered
a new ballet, Les Animaux Modeles,

429
00:32:52,300 --> 00:32:53,940
right here at the Paris Opera.

430
00:33:00,020 --> 00:33:02,580
Model Animals is a
pretty wacky piece.

431
00:33:02,580 --> 00:33:06,220
It's set on a farmyard in rural
France on a hot summer's morning.

432
00:33:06,220 --> 00:33:09,860
It features a cicada who plays
the violin, an amorous lion

433
00:33:09,860 --> 00:33:12,460
who makes love
to a beautiful young French girl

434
00:33:12,460 --> 00:33:14,980
and cockerels fighting to the death.

435
00:33:14,980 --> 00:33:17,220
What on earth was
Poulenc playing at?

436
00:33:17,220 --> 00:33:21,500
Was he selling out, writing nonsense
for German officers to enjoy?

437
00:33:21,500 --> 00:33:23,060
Well, not exactly.

438
00:33:26,180 --> 00:33:29,940
In fact, Poulenc was walking
a tightrope between collaboration

439
00:33:29,940 --> 00:33:31,460
and dangerous subversion.

440
00:33:32,860 --> 00:33:36,700
He was a member of the clandestine
Front National des Musiciens,

441
00:33:36,700 --> 00:33:39,500
a French resistance movement
that was waging a cultural war

442
00:33:39,500 --> 00:33:41,340
against the Nazis.

443
00:33:42,780 --> 00:33:46,620
And his music contained
coded messages of defiance.

444
00:33:56,980 --> 00:34:01,140
That is the tune that Poulenc sets
during the amorous lion part of his

445
00:34:01,140 --> 00:34:04,940
ballet, and it is a tune that would
have been very well known to anyone

446
00:34:04,940 --> 00:34:08,860
French. It's called Vous N'aurez
Pas L'Alsace Et Lorraine -

447
00:34:08,860 --> 00:34:11,100
You'll Never Have Alsace
And Lorraine -

448
00:34:11,100 --> 00:34:14,700
and it was coined during the 1870s
in the Franco-Prussian War when the

449
00:34:14,700 --> 00:34:19,620
French and Germans were skirmishing
over the disputed region of Alsace
and Lorraine.

450
00:34:19,620 --> 00:34:23,300
Essentially, it tells the Germans
where to stick it, saying,

451
00:34:23,300 --> 00:34:27,260
"You might have our land, but you'll
never have our French hearts."

452
00:34:59,540 --> 00:35:02,900
While this musical reference would
have been blindingly obvious

453
00:35:02,900 --> 00:35:06,620
to the French, it went completely
over the heads of the Germans

454
00:35:06,620 --> 00:35:08,100
attending the premiere.

455
00:35:10,620 --> 00:35:14,340
When it went by unnoticed,
Poulenc wrote in his diary,

456
00:35:14,340 --> 00:35:16,340
"I just sat there and smiled."

457
00:35:23,380 --> 00:35:26,700
Nights at the opera,
cafe-lined boulevards -

458
00:35:26,700 --> 00:35:30,660
the playground of Paris was a cushy
posting for any German officer,

459
00:35:30,660 --> 00:35:32,780
a world away from life back home.

460
00:35:34,620 --> 00:35:38,580
Here, music that was forbidden
in Germany positively flourished.

461
00:35:43,820 --> 00:35:46,500
There, jazz was "entartete" -

462
00:35:46,500 --> 00:35:47,460
degenerate.

463
00:35:51,500 --> 00:35:54,180
But in 1940,
following the occupation,

464
00:35:54,180 --> 00:35:58,060
125 new jazz clubs opened in Paris.

465
00:36:03,980 --> 00:36:06,740
All that jazz didn't
just slip through the net,

466
00:36:06,740 --> 00:36:09,860
it was sanctioned by
Germany's top brass.

467
00:36:09,860 --> 00:36:11,900
As Hitler said to Albert Speer,

468
00:36:11,900 --> 00:36:15,740
"What does the spiritual health of
the French people matter to us?

469
00:36:15,740 --> 00:36:17,100
"Let them be degenerate."

470
00:36:18,380 --> 00:36:22,020
And if jazz was deviant, how about
a little bit of Gypsy jazz?

471
00:36:22,020 --> 00:36:23,340
Double degeneracy!

472
00:36:25,900 --> 00:36:29,820
That's what was driving
Parisians wild in the 1940s -

473
00:36:29,820 --> 00:36:32,180
it was called Jazz Manouche.

474
00:36:46,380 --> 00:36:49,380
Gypsies, like Jews and homosexuals,

475
00:36:49,380 --> 00:36:53,060
were being murdered
in vast numbers by the Reich,

476
00:36:53,060 --> 00:36:55,500
but the Nazis left
Jazz Manouche untouched.

477
00:37:02,220 --> 00:37:04,860
Its leading light, Django Reinhardt,

478
00:37:04,860 --> 00:37:06,540
was himself a Roma Gypsy.

479
00:37:10,380 --> 00:37:13,340
Django did try to flee
to Switzerland,

480
00:37:13,340 --> 00:37:16,220
but when he was caught at the
border, he wasn't punished -

481
00:37:16,220 --> 00:37:19,300
the German officer simply
sent him back to Paris.

482
00:37:19,300 --> 00:37:21,180
He, too, was a Django fan.

483
00:37:41,460 --> 00:37:44,580
Claude Abadie was part of
that wartime jazz scene.

484
00:37:57,020 --> 00:37:58,340
Bravo!

485
00:37:58,340 --> 00:37:59,580
Thank you.

486
00:37:59,580 --> 00:38:03,300
Tell me about this photograph.
How old were you?

487
00:38:03,300 --> 00:38:06,620
18. That makes you how old now?

488
00:38:06,620 --> 00:38:08,900
97. You look good.

489
00:38:10,540 --> 00:38:13,580
The music is working for you,
it's kept you very young.

490
00:38:13,580 --> 00:38:15,860
One must be patient.

491
00:38:17,780 --> 00:38:19,460
As a practising musician,

492
00:38:19,460 --> 00:38:23,780
did the Nazi occupation have much
of an impact on your working life?

493
00:38:23,780 --> 00:38:27,340
Were you very aware
of the occupation?

494
00:38:27,340 --> 00:38:33,340
The only adjustment was that we were
not supposed to play American music.

495
00:38:33,340 --> 00:38:36,020
So we played any kind of music,

496
00:38:36,020 --> 00:38:39,740
but we didn't give the title
of the tunes, that's all.

497
00:38:39,740 --> 00:38:42,500
So you were still playing all of
the stuff that was forbidden?

498
00:38:42,500 --> 00:38:44,420
Quite. But nobody knew what it was?

499
00:38:44,420 --> 00:38:46,020
Quite.

500
00:38:46,020 --> 00:38:50,300
So, this is from 1942.

501
00:38:51,420 --> 00:38:52,780
Tell me about this concert.

502
00:38:53,940 --> 00:38:55,220
I don't remember.

503
00:38:56,660 --> 00:39:01,260
I was part of this concert
because I had just been winning

504
00:39:01,260 --> 00:39:06,340
the amateur jazz contest
a few days before.

505
00:39:06,340 --> 00:39:09,420
And you were on the same bill
as Django Reinhardt.

506
00:39:09,420 --> 00:39:12,700
But black musicians, obviously,
Jewish musicians,

507
00:39:12,700 --> 00:39:15,140
were banned, and then you
have somebody like Django

508
00:39:15,140 --> 00:39:18,940
who is a Roma Gypsy -
was there a tension there?

509
00:39:18,940 --> 00:39:21,300
Nobody...

510
00:39:21,300 --> 00:39:26,820
Nobody paid attention
to Django as a Gypsy.

511
00:39:27,900 --> 00:39:30,940
He was just a French musician,
so no problem.

512
00:39:33,020 --> 00:39:37,020
Music made life under occupation
a little easier to bear for many

513
00:39:37,020 --> 00:39:38,860
French performers and composers.

514
00:39:40,500 --> 00:39:42,900
For one, it was a
way of transcending

515
00:39:42,900 --> 00:39:44,740
desperate circumstances.

516
00:39:50,060 --> 00:39:54,180
During the war, the music of
Olivier Messiaen spoke of a world

517
00:39:54,180 --> 00:39:57,700
radically different from the
jumping nightspots of Paris.

518
00:40:03,060 --> 00:40:08,100
Messiaen was a devout Catholic, and
since 1931 had been organist at this

519
00:40:08,100 --> 00:40:10,780
Parisian church, La Sainte-Trinite,

520
00:40:10,780 --> 00:40:14,220
where he quietly established
himself as one of France's

521
00:40:14,220 --> 00:40:15,820
leading avant-garde composers.

522
00:40:18,660 --> 00:40:22,620
But his most extraordinary work
wasn't written in the peaceful

523
00:40:22,620 --> 00:40:24,580
sanctuary of this church,

524
00:40:24,580 --> 00:40:27,780
it was composed amid
the chaos and desolation

525
00:40:27,780 --> 00:40:30,140
of a prisoner of war camp.

526
00:40:42,020 --> 00:40:46,740
At Stalag VIII-A
on the 15th of January 1941,

527
00:40:46,740 --> 00:40:49,980
in front of his fellow prisoners
and captors,

528
00:40:49,980 --> 00:40:53,460
Messiaen premiered his
Quartet For The End Of Time.

529
00:41:03,420 --> 00:41:04,780
At the start of the war,

530
00:41:04,780 --> 00:41:08,900
Messiaen had been conscripted into
the army as a medical orderly.

531
00:41:08,900 --> 00:41:12,060
After France's surrender,
like many French soldiers,

532
00:41:12,060 --> 00:41:15,100
he'd been sent to a Stalag,
or prisoner of war camp,

533
00:41:15,100 --> 00:41:17,380
on the German-Polish border.

534
00:41:34,420 --> 00:41:38,260
Everything about this piece is
extraordinary, even its
orchestration -

535
00:41:38,260 --> 00:41:40,980
it's not the usual
gang of four strings,

536
00:41:40,980 --> 00:41:44,540
instead, it's the instruments that
Messiaen had at his disposal -

537
00:41:44,540 --> 00:41:47,500
a piano, a violin,
a clarinet and cello.

538
00:41:55,620 --> 00:41:59,700
Philippe Akoka is the son
of the original clarinettist.

539
00:42:17,020 --> 00:42:21,220
I mean, it must have been the most
extraordinary premiere, these

540
00:42:21,220 --> 00:42:25,220
strange collections of instruments
that shouldn't have been together.

541
00:42:25,220 --> 00:42:27,740
What memories did your father
have of that premiere?

542
00:42:59,180 --> 00:43:02,220
Even if you didn't know it had been
written in the middle of all of that

543
00:43:02,220 --> 00:43:04,180
misery and squalor,

544
00:43:04,180 --> 00:43:07,900
Messiaen's Quartet still has
a profound effect on you.

545
00:43:07,900 --> 00:43:11,180
For me, the piece is
a window on the eternal,

546
00:43:11,180 --> 00:43:15,020
a world away from the
constraints of time and space.

547
00:43:21,220 --> 00:43:25,180
When the clarinettist Henri Akoka
tried to escape from the camp,

548
00:43:25,180 --> 00:43:28,180
Messiaen had refused to join him.

549
00:43:28,180 --> 00:43:30,980
His Quartet was all
the escape he needed.

550
00:43:40,180 --> 00:43:42,980
Messiaen's premiere was a triumph,

551
00:43:42,980 --> 00:43:46,260
but it only happened because
the Germans allowed it to.

552
00:43:46,260 --> 00:43:48,620
By printing out neat
little playbills

553
00:43:48,620 --> 00:43:50,980
for the audience
to keep as a memento,

554
00:43:50,980 --> 00:43:53,780
the German camp commandant was
creating the artifice that they were

555
00:43:53,780 --> 00:43:57,180
all in it together,
enjoying a jolly good night.

556
00:43:57,180 --> 00:44:00,500
But there was no escaping the fact
that these people were prisoners,

557
00:44:00,500 --> 00:44:02,940
utterly trapped and under control.

558
00:44:07,380 --> 00:44:11,260
Nowhere would the Nazi desire
for command and control

559
00:44:11,260 --> 00:44:15,980
be more horrifically exploited than
in the Reich's relentless quest

560
00:44:15,980 --> 00:44:19,420
to purge Germany of those
considered to be...

561
00:44:19,420 --> 00:44:20,420
..undesirables.

562
00:44:28,820 --> 00:44:32,340
By the end of the war, the Nazis
were responsible for the deaths

563
00:44:32,340 --> 00:44:35,340
of many millions across Europe,

564
00:44:35,340 --> 00:44:36,780
including six million Jews.

565
00:44:39,940 --> 00:44:42,620
Yet, even in the
concentration camps,

566
00:44:42,620 --> 00:44:45,060
the Nazis found a place for music.

567
00:44:49,260 --> 00:44:53,620
In Auschwitz-Birkenau, there
were 12 official orchestras.

568
00:44:59,420 --> 00:45:02,980
While no footage of the
Auschwitz orchestras exists,

569
00:45:02,980 --> 00:45:07,860
the Germans did film musical life
at Theresienstadt camp in 1944.

570
00:45:18,620 --> 00:45:21,140
Looking at the footage
of Theresienstadt,

571
00:45:21,140 --> 00:45:23,300
it's tempting to think that the
musical life there

572
00:45:23,300 --> 00:45:26,020
might at least have
been a crumb of comfort

573
00:45:26,020 --> 00:45:28,300
to the prisoners,
a shred of humanity,

574
00:45:28,300 --> 00:45:30,420
which was in very short supply.

575
00:45:31,820 --> 00:45:36,380
But that's a dangerous thing, and
precisely what the Nazis wanted the
world to think.

576
00:45:36,380 --> 00:45:40,460
They made this film to show
that, with music in the camps,

577
00:45:40,460 --> 00:45:42,820
life for the Jews couldn't
be all that bad.

578
00:45:45,780 --> 00:45:50,820
But in reality, music had been
co-opted to serve the Nazis'
evil cause.

579
00:45:54,220 --> 00:45:57,300
Anita Lasker-Wallfisch was just 18

580
00:45:57,300 --> 00:46:00,220
when she arrived
at Auschwitz in 1943.

581
00:46:02,860 --> 00:46:05,380
What happened when
you first arrived?

582
00:46:06,620 --> 00:46:11,500
You go into a place where people
process you and shave your head

583
00:46:11,500 --> 00:46:13,460
and tattoo a number on your arm,

584
00:46:13,460 --> 00:46:15,100
and this is all done by prisoners.

585
00:46:15,100 --> 00:46:16,700
And take your clothes off you -

586
00:46:16,700 --> 00:46:19,020
most important thing,
everyone has to be naked.

587
00:46:19,020 --> 00:46:21,940
A lady said, "What did you do
before the war?"

588
00:46:21,940 --> 00:46:23,740
I said, "Well, I used
to play the cello."

589
00:46:23,740 --> 00:46:24,820
She said, "Fantastic.

590
00:46:26,140 --> 00:46:29,620
"You'll be saved. Stand here,
I'll come back in a minute."

591
00:46:29,620 --> 00:46:33,420
If you imagine me, I'm sitting
there, hairless, tattooed,
no clothes on.

592
00:46:34,980 --> 00:46:38,700
The lady approaches me and says,
"Oh, you play the cello,
how fantastic.

593
00:46:38,700 --> 00:46:40,780
"My name is Alma Rose...

594
00:46:40,780 --> 00:46:44,060
"..and I'm the conductor of the
orchestra and we badly need a cello,

595
00:46:44,060 --> 00:46:46,460
"we haven't got anybody
to play low notes."

596
00:46:46,460 --> 00:46:48,620
And that's how I started
my life in the...

597
00:46:49,820 --> 00:46:52,380
..band in Auschwitz.

598
00:46:57,700 --> 00:47:01,060
Those prisoners who weren't gassed
on arrival were incarcerated

599
00:47:01,060 --> 00:47:06,140
in blocks like this - 2,000
to each block, 11 to each bunk.

600
00:47:08,220 --> 00:47:11,860
While Anita's musical skills
secured her slightly better

601
00:47:11,860 --> 00:47:15,580
living conditions, she knew that
she was only being kept alive

602
00:47:15,580 --> 00:47:17,420
to fulfil one purpose.

603
00:47:19,860 --> 00:47:21,660
Our job was to play marches,

604
00:47:21,660 --> 00:47:26,180
so every morning we had to walk out
with the chairs and the music stands

605
00:47:26,180 --> 00:47:31,020
to the gate. That's where we sat,
and that's where thousands of people

606
00:47:31,020 --> 00:47:32,700
marched out every morning.

607
00:47:32,700 --> 00:47:35,060
And in the evening we did the same
thing the other way round,

608
00:47:35,060 --> 00:47:39,100
and we are very well aware that
as long as they want us,

609
00:47:39,100 --> 00:47:42,100
it'd be stupid to put us
in the gas chamber.

610
00:47:50,580 --> 00:47:54,100
It must have been the most
bizarre, macabre scene -

611
00:47:54,100 --> 00:47:56,820
jolly German tunes
wafting on the air,

612
00:47:56,820 --> 00:48:01,020
played sickeningly fast to make
all of those marchers keep pace.

613
00:48:01,020 --> 00:48:04,620
And, if they didn't keep up,
prisoners would be shot.

614
00:48:04,620 --> 00:48:08,580
This was music systematically
designed to dehumanise people,

615
00:48:08,580 --> 00:48:12,900
to get inside their heads and
destroy them from the inside out.

616
00:48:16,060 --> 00:48:19,820
The writer and Auschwitz prisoner
Primo Levi wrote that music was

617
00:48:19,820 --> 00:48:21,660
"The voice of the camp,

618
00:48:21,660 --> 00:48:24,780
"the perceptible expression
of its madness,

619
00:48:24,780 --> 00:48:28,780
"of the resolution of others to
annihilate us first as men

620
00:48:28,780 --> 00:48:31,580
"so that they could kill us
more slowly afterwards."

621
00:48:38,260 --> 00:48:40,820
Another camp survivor remembered,

622
00:48:40,820 --> 00:48:43,620
"Anyone who didn't know
the song was beaten.

623
00:48:43,620 --> 00:48:45,900
"Anyone who sang
too softly was beaten.

624
00:48:47,220 --> 00:48:49,780
"Anyone who sang too loud
was beaten."

625
00:48:59,100 --> 00:49:02,940
Nazis in the camps could demand
performances at any moment.

626
00:49:05,220 --> 00:49:09,660
At Auschwitz, the infamous camp
physician, Dr Josef Mengele,

627
00:49:09,660 --> 00:49:13,300
carried out warped experiments
on women and children,

628
00:49:13,300 --> 00:49:14,940
but he was a music lover,

629
00:49:14,940 --> 00:49:17,900
and to relax, would visit
the camp orchestra,

630
00:49:17,900 --> 00:49:20,780
ordering private recitals
of his favourite pieces.

631
00:49:24,180 --> 00:49:27,340
One day Mengele came in,
and he wanted to hear the Traumerei

632
00:49:27,340 --> 00:49:29,660
by Schumann
and that was in my repertoire,

633
00:49:29,660 --> 00:49:31,820
so "Anita, play the Traumerei."

634
00:49:31,820 --> 00:49:35,620
So I played it as fast as you could
possibly play the Traumerei and,

635
00:49:35,620 --> 00:49:36,780
"Just get out".

636
00:49:45,980 --> 00:49:49,140
That piece by Schumann is part of
the Kinderszenen,

637
00:49:49,140 --> 00:49:52,940
these scenes of childhood. Yeah.
It's about as innocent
a piece of music...

638
00:49:52,940 --> 00:49:54,660
It's nursery music. Exactly.

639
00:49:54,660 --> 00:49:58,060
And for somebody like Mengele
to come in in that situation

640
00:49:58,060 --> 00:50:01,460
and ask you for the most innocent
piece of "dream music" -

641
00:50:01,460 --> 00:50:04,540
that's what it is...
What the hell was he dreaming about?

642
00:50:04,540 --> 00:50:06,180
Yeah. You ask yourself.

643
00:50:07,820 --> 00:50:09,460
Yeah.

644
00:50:09,460 --> 00:50:12,500
Well, I wish I could
give you an explanation

645
00:50:12,500 --> 00:50:14,500
what goes on in
these people's minds.

646
00:50:24,020 --> 00:50:26,540
I mean, at the time when I played
it, you know, you didn't think,

647
00:50:26,540 --> 00:50:29,260
you just did what you
have to do and that's it.

648
00:50:29,260 --> 00:50:32,860
People always trying to plant a big,

649
00:50:32,860 --> 00:50:34,980
you know, philosophical thinking...

650
00:50:34,980 --> 00:50:38,460
Forget it, you know, this was
a life lived from day to day.

651
00:50:39,660 --> 00:50:42,860
All I could think...
"Get out as fast as you can,
I don't want to see you."

652
00:50:53,220 --> 00:50:55,780
People ask me, "How could you still
play the cello now

653
00:50:55,780 --> 00:50:57,500
"if you played the cello then?"

654
00:50:57,500 --> 00:51:00,740
Music is completely untouchable.

655
00:51:02,180 --> 00:51:04,700
I mean, the Nazis destroyed...

656
00:51:06,180 --> 00:51:07,860
..unspeakable amounts of things.

657
00:51:08,980 --> 00:51:13,460
I'm not letting Mr Mengele destroy
the beauty of the Traumerei for me,

658
00:51:13,460 --> 00:51:14,740
you know?

659
00:51:23,500 --> 00:51:28,340
To me, it is beyond comprehension
that a man like Josef Mengele,

660
00:51:28,340 --> 00:51:31,340
a man who truly believed
that Jews were subhuman,

661
00:51:31,340 --> 00:51:35,500
who carried out the most despicable
experiments on pregnant women

662
00:51:35,500 --> 00:51:39,220
and children, would ask
a young Jewish girl like Anita

663
00:51:39,220 --> 00:51:42,900
to play for him some of
the most profoundly human

664
00:51:42,900 --> 00:51:45,420
and tender music ever written.

665
00:51:45,420 --> 00:51:50,100
She did play, he listened, and then
he returned to this torture chamber.

666
00:51:59,180 --> 00:52:02,780
On the 27th of January 1945,

667
00:52:02,780 --> 00:52:05,860
Auschwitz was finally liberated
by the Russian army.

668
00:52:07,940 --> 00:52:11,060
7,000 people remained alive
at the camp.

669
00:52:13,100 --> 00:52:15,260
Over a million
had been murdered here.

670
00:52:30,580 --> 00:52:34,460
Two months later, the Russians
reached the outskirts of Berlin

671
00:52:34,460 --> 00:52:36,580
and were preparing
for the final attack.

672
00:52:43,100 --> 00:52:44,300
Throughout the war,

673
00:52:44,300 --> 00:52:49,020
the Nazis had used and abused music
to turn their regime into a grand,

674
00:52:49,020 --> 00:52:50,340
grotesque spectacle.

675
00:52:55,180 --> 00:52:59,700
Now, even as the Third Reich
faced imminent annihilation,

676
00:52:59,700 --> 00:53:04,020
the Nazis chose to stage
one last momentous concert.

677
00:53:36,780 --> 00:53:39,820
The Berlin Philharmonic,
the Reich's orchestra,

678
00:53:39,820 --> 00:53:44,860
would sound one final blast of
German patriotism for the Nazis,

679
00:53:44,860 --> 00:53:47,940
with a playlist of Beethoven,
Bruckner and, of course,

680
00:53:47,940 --> 00:53:50,220
Hitler's favourite, Wagner.

681
00:53:54,500 --> 00:53:57,260
And it was a particular
piece of Wagner's,

682
00:53:57,260 --> 00:54:00,340
the Immolation Scene
from his opera Gotterdammerung,

683
00:54:00,340 --> 00:54:03,780
depicting the world of the gods
destroyed by fire,

684
00:54:03,780 --> 00:54:06,180
the sky glowing red.

685
00:54:06,180 --> 00:54:09,860
It was a mirror to the Third Reich
as it went up in flames.

686
00:54:23,300 --> 00:54:28,540
The city of Berlin lay in ruins,
its outskirts reduced to rubble,

687
00:54:28,540 --> 00:54:30,900
its centre under constant shelling.

688
00:54:35,380 --> 00:54:40,620
The audience, gathering together
to listen to Wagner one last time,

689
00:54:40,620 --> 00:54:44,580
consisted of those too elderly
or infirm to flee,

690
00:54:44,580 --> 00:54:47,980
and Nazi zealots
fighting to the bitter end.

691
00:55:12,060 --> 00:55:16,220
It was an apocalyptic finale
for the Third Reich.

692
00:55:16,220 --> 00:55:19,220
One member of the audience later
recalled the young men of the

693
00:55:19,220 --> 00:55:23,660
Hitlerjugend offering out
cyanide pills by the bucket-load.

694
00:55:35,140 --> 00:55:37,220
Two weeks after the concert,

695
00:55:37,220 --> 00:55:40,300
Hitler committed suicide
and Germany surrendered.

696
00:55:44,740 --> 00:55:46,660
The Third Reich was over.

697
00:56:12,340 --> 00:56:14,820
And yet, the band played on.

698
00:56:16,660 --> 00:56:20,900
Just one month later, in one of
the few venues left standing,

699
00:56:20,900 --> 00:56:24,220
the Berlin Philharmonic reassembled
for a new performance.

700
00:56:25,860 --> 00:56:29,260
This concert had a
very different programme.

701
00:56:29,260 --> 00:56:33,500
No Wagner - instead the audience
was treated to Mendelssohn,

702
00:56:33,500 --> 00:56:34,980
A Midsummer Night's Dream.

703
00:56:45,060 --> 00:56:47,180
Because of his Jewish heritage,

704
00:56:47,180 --> 00:56:50,860
Mendelssohn had been banned by the
Nazis since they came to power.

705
00:56:52,660 --> 00:56:54,820
What better way
to mark their downfall?

706
00:57:14,700 --> 00:57:19,500
But, added to that symbolism,
the music itself had a message.

707
00:57:19,500 --> 00:57:24,580
A Midsummer Night's Dream conjured
up fairies, magic, make-believe,

708
00:57:24,580 --> 00:57:27,060
a world where anything was possible

709
00:57:27,060 --> 00:57:29,980
and where things could be
made new again.

710
00:57:40,500 --> 00:57:44,500
Sprinkling a little fairy dust
couldn't erase the recent horror...

711
00:57:46,220 --> 00:57:49,780
..but this was, in every sense,
an overture -

712
00:57:49,780 --> 00:57:52,140
music offered hope for the future.

713
00:57:58,100 --> 00:58:02,300
Music will always have that
special force that aims straight

714
00:58:02,300 --> 00:58:05,260
for our heart and bypasses our head.

715
00:58:05,260 --> 00:58:09,900
That emotional force is what makes
it so vulnerable to manipulation

716
00:58:09,900 --> 00:58:12,220
and abuse.

717
00:58:12,220 --> 00:58:15,260
Of course we should continue
to love it, to celebrate it -

718
00:58:15,260 --> 00:58:17,420
music gives us licence to dream.

719
00:58:20,540 --> 00:58:23,500
But, as the events of
the 20th century show,

720
00:58:23,500 --> 00:58:26,900
we should also be wary
of its seductive power.

721
00:58:29,300 --> 00:58:31,700
MUSIC: A Midsummer Night's Dream
by Felix Mendelssohn