In the near darkness of the small, lovely, baroque-style Koncerthalle in a Bavarian city, a German civilian begged an apology as he brushed by me to occupy a seat on my left side in the center orchestra section. The lighting was very dim to conserve power in the American Zone of Germany in late 1946. This was a very historic concert, for the symphony orchestra and chorale groups would be celebrating an evening dedicated to the music of Felix Mendelssohn Bartoldy, one of the greatest German Romantic composers, who, because of his Jewish ancestry, became a pariah in Nazi Germany. His music was banned and his contributions to the history of German culture as a composer, musician, director and musicologist were denigrated as the Nazis tried to erase his musical memory.

For many of those attending this concert, it would be the first time they had an opportunity to hear in concert the works of this important composer in many years. The organization of the concert was difficult indeed due to the severe straits of the immediate post-war economy, with shortages of food, fuel and a near-extinct governmental and physical infrastructure. The concert was organized by the Civil Affairs Division of the United States Army. Hurdles included the problems of ensuring the denazification of most all of the German participants, heating and power to the Koncerthalle building, ensuring that instruments were obtained for all members of the orchestra, the organization of the orchestra itself, heating and lighting the Koncerthalle during rehearsals, and the organization of the chorales and securing the soloists, to name only the outstanding obstacles. As the lights almost totally dimmed and the curtains parted, a sigh could be heard suffusing through the audience and was followed by the entrance of the first violinist – the concertmeister – who helped tune the orchestra and then the entrance of the conductor, followed by the large chorus lining up in the rear of the orchestra. The program featured the second symphony of Mendelssohn, dubbed the “Lobgesang” or the “Hymn of Praise,” written in 1840 to celebrate the quarter-centenary of the invention of printing, with the first performance taking place in the church of Johan Sebastian Bach, St. Thomas’s, in Leipzig, Germany. It consists of three short orchestral movements followed by nine vocal and choral movements with texts selected from the Bible and a hymn, “Let all men praise the Lord.” The symphony also featured the solo voices of two sopranos and a tenor, besides a chorus. This was quite a long piece and generally takes about 70 minutes to complete. The second symphony was preceded by the Overture to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and the Hebrides Overture, “Fingal’s Cave,” followed by a brief intermission. There was no admission fee for the concert and it was open to anyone on a first-come, first-serve basis, with some reserved seats for the Allied Armed Forces and German civil administrators.

Tears

Maurice S. Albin, M.D., M.Sc. (Anes.)

November 2012 n Volume 76 n Number 1132

Maurice S. Albin, M.D., M.Sc., (Anes.), is Professor of Anesthesiology in the David Hill Chestnut Section on the History of Anesthesia, University of Alabama School of Medicine, Birmingham.

The first two overtures were played very well and, as it turned out, all the players had been professional musicians at one time or another. Surprisingly, the Koncerthalle was filled to capacity and the first piece received a restrained if polite applause, as if the audience were dipping their toes in a water whose temperature was unknown. However, reaction to the Hebrides Overture became very enthusiastic, and the intermission began. My knowledge of German being quite fair, I decided to sit among the German audience, next to a spare, tall, old, austere-looking individual and introduced myself. He, in turn, wished me a good evening, bowed and introduced himself as Herr Doctor Bernhardt, in excellent but slightly stilted English. He mentioned that he was a retired Professor of Classics from the University of L. and was quite surprised at my interest in classical literature. Very politely, he asked about my background and when I mentioned that my father was a veteran of WWI and served in the infantry, Dr. Bernhardt seemed to come to life and volunteered that he also served in WWI and that his father participated in the Franco-Prussian War. We then discussed classical music and I was delighted to find out that he was a great admirer of Mendelssohn, and among the few belongings that survived the incessant bombings and destruction in the areas of Germany where he had resided, a portion of his collection of recordings of Mendelssohn’s music had survived. By now the intermission had ended and the piece de resistance, Mendelssohn’s Second Symphony, was ready to begin. About midway through the symphony and in the

beginning of the beautiful vocal portions, I looked to my left because I thought I heard a strange noise which sounded like someone trying to suppress crying, and in a rare moment when a particle of light entered our area, I could see the reflections of tears rolling down the leathery cheeks of Professor Bernhardt. Amazingly, in moments of orchestral and vocal quietude, one could hear these same sounds emanating from nearby sections of the orchestra seats. I wondered what poignant memories these people had that would trigger these tearful responses over and above the emotions that could be aroused just by the powers of beautiful music alone? I wondered about the reactions of those adults who are now being exposed to the charm of Mendelssohn’s music for the first time and also wondered what this music triggered in Professor Bernhardt’s psyche, something that I was to find out not too long afterward. After the concert was over, the professor and I chit-chatted for a while, during which time we discussed some of Mendelssohn’s works and then, while discussing the classics, somehow mentioned my interest in polishing up my Latin. I was able to convince him to meet me at the house where my wife and I were living. (She was one of the first dependent wives to live in the American zone of occupation.) About a week later, this tall, slightly stooped man arrived wearing a suit that was clean but had seen better days and a topcoat that was fairly threadbare. He was taken with my wife, especially when he noted her heavy English accent and

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mentioned that he had visited Great Britain many times. Since it was wintertime and quite cold, we had a fire going in the dining room fireplace, and not giving the professor a chance to say no, she started serving tea with petit-fours followed by her home-baked cakes. Though there was little food available for the civilian population, I felt that this proud man would refuse anything unless he thought that it was part of our normal routine. After this small repast, the professor opened his leather briefcase and brought out a Latin text for middle school students and apologized for the quality of it saying it was full of Nazi propaganda and emphasized the role of the Germanic races in history inheriting the mantle of Roman civilization. And yes, indeed, quite full of the concept of the Ubermensch it was! The professor and I spent more than an hour going over Latin grammar, after which he gave me my assignment for the next class. I paid him in occupation marks over his objections that it was too generous. I then offered to drive him home in my military jeep, which he refused, and I felt bad in seeing this elderly man having to trudge nearly two miles through cold and snow to his probably unheated flat. Over the next month, we developed a routine of him coming to my home about two or three times a week and we were able to have a little Kaffe und Schnapps for half an hour after the lesson was over. Piecemeal-like, Professor Bernhardt’s life unfolded during our sessions as the professor allowed the young, inquisitive American to peek into his past. He came from the Eastern part of Germany that would have included Prussia, and on his father’s side descended from a long line of Lutheran clerics; his mother having a background of being part of a lesser nobility with a military background. His family always had a love of classical music, and as he grew up he developed a love of the classics, which he studied at a famous university in Bavaria. There, he received his doctorate and returned to an eastern German university where he received an academic appointment. When WWI arrived, Dr. Bernhardt became an officer in the infantry. After much prodding, I found out that he was decorated many times and apparently won a large number of medals for bravery up to the “Pour Le Merite,” the German equivalent of the American Congressional Medal of Honor, which I confirmed through a friend in the U.S. Civil Affairs Division. His heroism and subsequent WWI citations and decorations were an important factor in saving him from incarceration, as we will note later on in this vignette. After WWI, he married, had two children and went back to teaching classes at the university. The economic stresses brought on by the WWI peace treaty caused massive unemployment that heralded acute political divisions in Germany, leading to the rise of National Socialism, Hitler and a racial purification agenda that included the

deranged anti-Semitic policies of Adolph Hitler and perverted anti-intellectualism. The capture of the German government by the National Socialists brought about the “Nazification” of the German university, many of whom were liberal, socialistic, communistic or religious antagonists to the Nazi agenda. Slowly, the opposition to the Nazi decrees were silenced by both subtle and forceful methods, including a “cleansing” of the universities. The professor, who had a contemptuous regard to those, who he told me, were destroying the basis of German Kultur with its pagan rituality and perversions of German history was caught up in the dragnet of those accused by the Nazis of being “saboteurs” and would have suffered incarceration, torture or death. He was saved because of his illustrious war record and heralded family background. This did not prevent him from being forced out of his teaching position at the university and subjected to surveillance as well as having to find employment in a munitions factory, hired because of his military experience in WWI and the hazardous nature of the job. In 1944, the factory was moved to western Germany to escape the Soviet invasion from the east and he arrived in this area of Bavaria. I did not find out any information about his immediate family, except to hear him mention one day one of his sons was killed in action fighting on the eastern front. The professor was always full of intellectual surprises. One day, while visiting me for a lesson, he started to discuss Mendelssohn’s music and he suddenly launched into the first choral section of Mendelssohn’s Second Symphony (“The Hymn of Praise – Lobgesang”), singing from Psalm 150 the words, “All that have breath, praise the Lord (Alles was Odem hat Lobe den Herr.”) He explained that his family was very familiar with most all of Mendelssohn’s works and that he was overwhelmed when he heard the music at the concert, which was the first time he had heard a public performance of this work in nearly 14 years and, as he said it, tears again came to his eyes. Unfortunately, a short time later, my unit was transferred to another city in Bavaria, then went on maneuvers at the old German army training facility at Grafenwohr. I lost contact with the professor, even though I wrote him on a number of occasions, never receiving a reply, not knowing whether he had received my letters. So now, sitting in my living room and writing this vignette, I am also listening to a recording of the Second Symphony of Mendelssohn, conducted by Claudio Abbado and the London Symphony Orchestra. I am also thinking of the gaunt, thin, honest Professor of Classics, quietly sobbing as the strains of Mendelssohn’s Second Symphony washed over him, who was imbued with the courage to resist the plague of Nazism.

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34 November 2012 n Volume 76 n Number 11

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