(fwd) Re: Hitler and the accordion (fwd)

[Ted Samsel]

Yet another....

Forwarded message:
> Subject: (fwd) Re: Hitler and the accordion
> Newsgroups: rec.music.makers.squeezebox
> 
> I've read Christoph Wagner: Das Akkordeon -- eine wilde Karriere
> completely now (I finished two o'clock last night), and I'll
> try to summarise the chapter 'Heil Handharf'.
> 
> The main player in this chapter is Hohner, the largest accordion
> producer of Germany if not of the World. To my surprise, Hohner
> only started to make accordions in 1903, after the death of
> Mathias Hohner senior: Mathias Hohner had been against producing
> accordions, because it might have spoilt the market for
> mouth harmonicas.
> 
> Hohner had done a lot to promote the accordion, amongst others
> by encouraging the formation of accordion orchestra, and by the
> education of accordion teachers. Hohner had also initiated
> the foundation of the 'Deutscher Handharmonika Verband (DHHV)'
> (German accordion society), and had always played a major part in it.
> 
> The chapter 'Heil Handharf' is basically about Hohner doing everything
> to keep on selling accordions (including making publicity of
> accordion orchestras playing for high Nazis).
> 
> In 1933 and 1934, the DHHV came more and more under control
> of the Reichsmusikkammer, i.e. the Nazis. At first, to prevent
> outside control, the president and the vice president of the DHHV
> had joined the NSDAP, but that helped only temporary.
> At the end of 1936, the DHHV seat was moved to Berlin, and shortly
> afterwards the DHHV was disbanded.
> 
> The accordion as a 'nigger-jazz' instrument
> ===========================================
> 
> Under the Nazis, of course only 'German' music was allowed.
> One type of music that certainly was not German, was jazz music.
> As the jazz music had grown up at the same time as the accordion,
> they were well connected, as many Hohner ads showed. This meant
> trouble for the accordion, of course. In a town in the north of
> Bavaria, in 1933 'playing the piano accordion in public' was forbidden
> because of its jazz connections.
> Since then, Hohner did everything to deny the connection,
> saying the accordion was 'excellently suited for German folk music',
> that the saxophone was the real culprit, etc. That seems to have
> worked.
> It is noted, that even so, the accordion was still present as
> a jazz instrument: in 1936 there was a picture of a army 
> accordion orchestra in the 'Handharmonika' magazine, with on the
> bass drum clearly readible: 'JAZZ BAND'.
> 
> The accordion prosecuted by the Nazis?
> ======================================
> 
> On the question of what was German music, there were two camps:
> the classical camp, and the folk camp. In the top of
> the Reichsmusikkammer, but especially in the top of the youth 
> organisation, there were fierce opponents of the accordion.
> The arguments were not always the same, but some arguments were:
> - the accordion is unsuited for 'higher' (classical) music.
> this point of view was shared by many people on the pro accordion side;
> this also caused Hohner to revert its earlier policy of promoting
> the accordion as a serious, classical instrument.
> - the accordion came from Vienna, and was therefore not German enough
> - it was not handmade
> - real folk instruments ought to be melody instruments, not chord instruments
> - it prevents people from learning real music, because of the tablature
> notation (for diatonic instruments).
> 
> In February 1938, this led to the decree that from then on,
> in the youth organisations no new accordion orchestras or groups
> were to be founded, and existing groups should gradualy change
> to strings and woodwinds, etc.
> This decree was life threatening to Hohner, because it meant
> an attack to the basis of the home market: if no young people would
> play the accordion, they wouldn't start at a later age either.
> And without a home market, export would be more difficult.
> So Hohner wrote a letter to the minister of trade, pointing out that
> this would threaten the livelyhood of the 10000 employees
> in the industry, and their families included even more than 50000 people.
> This argument was good enough, so that the decree was retracted a month
> later, to the point that 'the accordion was well suited for folk
> music etc., but definitely not for the German masters such as
> Haydn, Wagner, etc.
> The argument stopped definitely in 1942, when the ministry for propaganda
> forbade further discussions on this point.
> 
> 'war winner' and comforter of souls in World War II
> ===================================================
> Everything changed when the war started, as the accordion was very
> popular in the army. Hohner advertised with
> 'the rifle is the bride of the soldier, but the accordion is his girlfriend!'.
> The accordion was popular on all sides
> [Gary Blair told us about the English side of this],
> and definitely more popular than before the war: the market
> was unsatiable.
> 
> 
> ==================================================
> 
> In this chapter there is also a very nice WW-I story, I'll 
> give the translation in a seperate message
> ('Christmas in the trenches')
> 
> 
> Jeroen
> 
> -- 
> Ted Samsel....tejas at infi.net  *1996* Year of the Accordion~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>          "Home of the brave, land of the free,
>           I don't want to be mistreated by no bourgoisie."
> AAFOUF# 0000003                           Huddie Ledbetter
>