The Nazis’ 10 Management-Freak Guidelines for Jazz Performers: A Unusual Checklist from World Warfare II

Just like the rock and roll rev­o­lu­tion of the Fifties, which shocked staid white audi­ences with trans­la­tions of black rhythm and blues, the pop­u­lar­i­ty of jazz brought about every kind of racial pan­ic and social anx­i­ety within the ear­ly a part of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry. Lengthy earlier than the rise of Euro­pean fas­cism, many Amer­i­can teams expressed excessive concern and agi­ta­tion over the rise of minor­i­ty cul­tur­al types. However by World Warfare II, jazz was intrin­si­cal­ly woven into the fab­ric of Amer­i­can main­i­ty cul­ture, albeit typically in ver­sions scrubbed of blues underneath­tones. This was not, in fact, the case in Nazi occu­pied Europe, the place jazz was sup­pressed; like most types of mod­ern artwork, it bore the stig­ma of impu­ri­ty, inno­va­tion, pas­sion… all qual­i­ties whole­i­tar­i­ans frown on (even anti-fas­cist the­o­rist Theodor Adorno had a seri­ous beef with jazz).

And whereas it’s no nice sur­prise that Nazis hat­ed jazz, it appears they expressed their dis­ap­proval in a really odd­ly spe­cif­ic method, at the least within the rec­ol­lec­tion of Czech author and dis­si­dent Josef Skvorecky.

On the occa­sion of Skvorecky’s dying, J.J. Gould level­ed out in The Atlantic that the author was him­self one of many char­ac­ters that so inter­est­ed Kubrick. An aspir­ing tenor sax­o­telephone play­er liv­ing in Third Reich-occu­pied Czecho­slo­va­kia, Skvorecky had ample oppor­tu­ni­ty to expe­ri­ence the Nazis’ “con­trol-freak hatred of jazz.” Within the intro to his quick nov­el The Bass Sax­o­telephone, he recounts from mem­o­ry a set of ten weird reg­u­la­tions issued by a Gauleit­er, a area­al Nazi offi­cial, that sure native dance orches­tras dur­ing the Czech occu­pa­tion.

1. Items in fox­trot rhythm (so-called swing) are to not exceed 20% of the reper­toires of sunshine orches­tras and dance bands;
2. On this so-called jazz kind reper­toire, pref­er­ence is to be giv­en to com­po­si­tions in a significant key and to lyrics specific­ing pleasure in life slightly than Jew­ish­ly gloomy lyrics;
3. As to tem­po, pref­er­ence can be to be giv­en to brisk com­po­si­tions over gradual ones (so-called blues); how­ev­er, the tempo should not exceed a cer­tain diploma of alle­gro, com­males­su­price with the Aryan sense of dis­ci­pline and mod­er­a­tion. In no way will Negroid extra­es in tem­po (so-called sizzling jazz) or in solo per­for­mances (so-called breaks) be tol­er­at­ed;
4. So-called jazz com­po­si­tions could con­tain at most 10% syn­co­pa­tion; the stay­der should con­sist of a nat­ur­al lega­to maneuver­ment devoid of the hys­ter­i­cal rhyth­mic revers­es char­ac­ter­is­tic of the bar­bar­ian races and con­ducive to darkish instincts alien to the Ger­man peo­ple (so-called riffs);
5. Strict­ly professional­hib­it­ed is using instru­ments alien to the Ger­man spir­it (so-called cow­bells, flex­a­tone, brush­es, and so on.) in addition to all mutes which flip the noble sound of wind and brass instru­ments right into a Jew­ish-Freema­son­ic yowl (so-called wa-wa, hat, and so on.);
6. Additionally professional­hib­it­ed are so-called drum breaks longer than half a bar in four-quar­ter beat (besides in styl­ized mil­i­tary march­es);
7. The dou­ble bass should be performed sole­ly with the bow in so-called jazz com­po­si­tions;
8. Pluck­ing of the strings is professional­hib­it­ed, since it’s dam­ag­ing to the instru­ment and detri­males­tal to Aryan musi­cal­i­ty; if a so-called pizzi­ca­to impact is absolute­ly desir­ready for the char­ac­ter of the com­po­si­tion, strict care should be tak­en lest the string be allowed to pat­ter on the sor­dine, which is therefore­forth for­bid­den;
9. Musi­cians are like­clever for­bid­den to make vocal impro­vi­sa­tions (so-called scat);
10. All mild orches­tras and dance bands are suggested to limit using sax­o­telephones of all keys and to sub­sti­tute for them the vio­lin-cel­lo, the vio­la or pos­si­bly a swimsuit­ready folks instru­ment.

As The Atlantic notes, “being a Nazi, this pub­lic ser­vant obvi­ous­ly did­n’t miss an oppor­tu­ni­ty to sofa as many of those reg­u­la­tions as he may in racist or anti-Semit­ic phrases.” This racial­ized concern and hatred was the supply, in spite of everything, of the objec­tion. It’s nearly impos­si­ble for me to imag­ine what sort of music this set of restric­tions may pos­si­bly professional­duce, however it most cer­tain­ly wouldn’t be any­factor peo­ple would need to dance to. And that was prob­a­bly the purpose.

For extra on Josef Skvorecky’s life as a author underneath Nazism and his escape from Czecho­slo­va­kia after the Sovi­et inva­sion, learn his illu­mi­nat­ing Paris Overview inter­view.

Be aware: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this submit appeared on our website in 2013.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The 16,000 Artwork­works the Nazis Cen­sored and Labeled “Degen­er­ate Artwork”: The Com­plete His­toric Inven­to­ry Is Now On-line

Hear the Nazi’s Biz­zaro Professional­pa­gan­da Jazz Band, “Char­lie and His Orches­tra” (1940–1943)

How France Hid the Mona Lisa & Oth­er Lou­vre Mas­ter­items Dur­ing World Warfare II

When the Nazis Declared Warfare on Expres­sion­ist Artwork (1937)

Josh Jones is a author, edi­tor, and musi­cian primarily based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness