Augenblicke
Dear Ralph,
Thank you ever so much for the incredibly detailed response and wealth of information you brought to the topics, both directly and tangentially. You, at least once, referred to yourself quite modestly as a mere provincial organist, yet you obviously have access to a ton of resources and are able to understand them and then distill the information making it accessible to others.
I'm going to quote from your reply and then respond so that things are easier to follow and reference.
"The fact that it was possible to become a member of the NSDAP in Nazi Germany ‘against one's will’ or even unknowingly was widely circulated in post-war Germany, but has since been clearly debunked as an exonerating myth by historians in extensive empirical studies; see in particular Wolfgang Benz (ed.): ‘Wie wurde man Parteigenosse? The NSDAP and its members’, Frankfurt/M. 2009.... It is also highly doubtful that people would have been forced to join the NSDAP in May 1933, as the party decided on 19 April 1933 to impose a veritable membership ban due to the administratively unmanageable flood of new party members, whom the National Socialists - probably with some justification - accused of opportunistic ingratiation out of personal career aspirations (they mockingly referred to these new members as ‘March martyrs’)."
I knew the state of research had changed since my dissertation research time in 2004, I just wasn't aware of how much and don't have access to the sources you've brought up. I was going by the earlier reference you mentioned for my doctoral research, "Michael Töpel's personal article in the MGG of 2001 states that Distler's early NSDAP membership on 1 May 1933 was based on a concession by the Lübeck Protestant Church to the party that lower church employees should join the NSDAP so that pastors could avoid this step." And I have seen that photograph in Hanheide's book (I probably have a copy in my papers somewhere, even, but they're all packed and I can't look anything up right now). I also know of this reference: "(cf. for example Hugo Distler, Von der Mission der deutschen evangelischen Kirchenmusik und Lübecks Verpflichtung als Kirchenmusikstadt im Besonderen, in: Lübecker Blätter, vol. 75, no. 26 of 25 June 1933, p. 383 ff.)," but I don't remember reading anything in that about eugenics or racial science, regarding Distler. But, I also did not look into the associations of the journal and who published it, etc. I purposefully kept my research focus very narrow.
I was also aware that Barbara kept a close eye on things and made sure nothing untoward ever came to light about Distler. And Ursula Hermann's account was the go-to for Distler for a long time. I had a newer one from a South-African musicologist that I relied on as well, but again nothing was in it that suggested Distler eagerly and with enthusiasm joined the NSDAP.
So the fact that more things are coming out now makes sense, as Barbara is not there to rewrite the history anymore. One of the sources you cite is just from last year, even, so very very current and newer than anything Larry Palmer or I found, for sure.
And the rest of your account, fascinatingly, reads like what I experienced from going through Distler's life, full of ups and downs. He was criticized, had some music labeled as degenerate, and had lots of problems when he was in Berlin. But, as you mentioned, he also had plenty of successes and was respected in other circles by other folks. And this dichotomy began to lead me down another path, which I trod very carefully. It is of course impossible to know with certainty, as much as we'd like to, why a person chooses to end their life earlier than planned, when to the outside world it seems as if they are doing fine. After examining everything, my own conjecture, which I included in my dissertation and had psychologists look at things to tell me yes or no (they told me yes), is that he was probably bipolar, having manic depressive disorder type two. So, I do agree with your statement there toward the end, "Distler was probably a sensitive, torn character, perhaps a fellow traveller out of fear or for career reasons," but there was more.
It's much easier to create the narrative, like Barbara and Ursula did, that he committed suicide because of the Nazis, and make him out to be martyr-like. But when you look at his life as a whole, read about his work habits, examine when he composed things and when he didn't, etc., more comes to light, and you get the sense that he was a tortured genius (not tortured by others, but by his own mind). And then now, taking into account the more recent research you've presented, this really is only confirmed even more. Distler had his own demons in his head. No, negative feedback from, apparently select and isolated, critics and hindrances in Berlin didn't help things any, but I never got the sense that these were enough to cause him to voluntarily die from gas poisoning. And I never got the impression that he was plagued by a sense of guilt of so heavy a burden by being associated with the NSDAP, though I sensed he wasn't particularly comfortable with that. It was something he had to do to be in society, so he did. He had a family to take care of and protect.
I'll close by commenting on a separate topic than Distler, but related to the first post you wrote and a further observation: "The fact that it was possible to become a member of the NSDAP in Nazi Germany ‘against one's will’ or even unknowingly was widely circulated in post-war Germany, but has since been clearly debunked as an exonerating myth by historians in extensive empirical studies; see in particular Wolfgang Benz (ed.): ‘Wie wurde man Parteigenosse? The NSDAP and its members’, Frankfurt/M. 2009." AND "especially as even better-off people in centuries-old democracies act in a similarly opportunistic manner nowadays."
I would need to read the Benz source to get a clearer sense of exact
