Art is Good Only As It is Rooted in Race, Declares Goebbels

Following is the statement of Paul Joseph Goebbels, Nazi minister for propaganda and public enlightenment, made in answer to the protest of Wilhelm Fuertwaengler, conductor, against the Nazis’ discriminatory action against Jewish musicians and even non-Jewish musicians who happened to be non-Nazi. The basis of Goebbels’ statement is that art must be nationally grounded:

“As a German politician, I cannot acknowledge your dividing line—between good and bad art—as the only one. Art must not only be good but it must be also popularly grounded. It can be expressed even better: Only that art which draws its inspiration from the body of the people can be good art in the last analysis and mean something to the people for whom it has been created.

“There must be no art in the absolute sense, such as a liberal democracy acknowledges. An attempt to serve such art would end in the people’s losing all internal contact therewith and the artist becoming isolated in a vacuum of art for art’s sake. Art must be good, but, beyond that, conscious of its responsibility close to the people and militant.

EXPERIMENTATION DEPLORED

“That art will no longer bear experimentation I freely admit. It would have been more appropriate, however, if the protests against artistic experiments had been raised at a time when the German art world was almost exclusively dominated by the experimental mania of elements alien to our people and race, who gravely compromised the reputation of German art in the eyes of the world.

“You are surely right when you assert that quality should be not only the ideal but the essential question. You are right even more when you fight with us against the rootless and destructive art attempts that are corrupted by banality and fried-out virtuosity. I admit willingly that Germanic representatives have also taken part in those evil doings; but that only proves how deeply the roots of these perils had already penetrated the German soil and how necessary it was to take a stand against them.

“True artists are rare. They must, therefore, be fostered and supported. Such artists will always get a hearing in Germany.

“But to complain of the circumstances that here and there men like Walter, Klemperer, Reinhardt, etc., have canceled their concerts appears to me the less appropriate at this time when it is considered that during the last fourteen years really German artists have often been condemned to complete silence and that events of recent weeks—which we also do not approve—represent a natural reaction to that state of affairs.

FREE FIELD IS DESIRED

“I am of the opinion that among us every genuine artist should have a free field for unhampered activity. But, as you say yourself, he must then be a constructive, creative person—he must not belong to those whom you justly castigate, those who are rootless, disintegrating, shallowing and destructive and mostly have only technical capacity.”