Editing Carl Orff (section)

====White Rose controversy====

According to [[Michael Hans Kater|Michael Kater]], Orff cleared his name during the denazification period by claiming that he had helped establish the White Rose resistance movement in Germany.{{sfn|Kater|1995|pp=26–29}}{{sfn|Kater|2000|pp=133–138}} Kater also made a particularly strong case that Orff collaborated with [[Nazi German]] authorities.<!-- Page not available at The Times nor at Wayback.<ref name="entertainment.timesonline.co.uk" /> --> The source for the White Rose claim was a 1993 interview with Jenkins.<ref name=dennis>[https://web.archive.org/web/20040223085918/http://www.h-net.org/~german/articles/dennis1.html Review of "Carl Orff im Dritten Reich"] Archive, by David B. Dennis, [[Loyola University Chicago]] (25 January 1996)</ref> Kater described his finding as "nothing less than sensational" (''nichts weniger als sensationell'').{{sfn|Kater|1995|page=26}}  The episode was the source of considerable strife.<ref>{{cite news |last=Signed "mau" |date=19 June 1995 |title=Märchen-Journalismus |work=[[Süddeutsche Zeitung]]}} Feuilleton, p. 11.</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Jans |first=Hans Jörg |date=1 July 1995 |title=Peinliche Unterschiebung eines Machwerks über Orff |work=Süddeutsche Zeitung}} Leserbriefe, S. 11.</ref>  The controversy elicited objections from two people who had known Orff in their youth during the Third Reich, one of whom recalled that Jenkins had been trying to portray Orff as a "resistance fighter" (''Widerstandskämpfer'') and thus believed that Jenkins had been the source of the alleged legend.{{sfn|Kohler|2015|pp=441–442 |postscript=, quotation from p. 442; here one may find a reprint of these letters with English translation. For the original publications, see Wilm, Renatus (15 July 1995). "Orff und die "Weiße Rose'". ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung'', Nr. 162, p. 6; Spangenberg, Christa. (1 July 1995). "Enttäuschung über Sympathie mit den Nazis". ''[[Süddeutsche Zeitung]]'', p. 11.}}

A few years later, Viennese historian Oliver Rathkolb discovered Orff's denazification file, which was distributed to reporters in a press conference at the Orff-Zentrum München on 10 February 1999. In this document, there is no claim about being in the White Rose.{{sfn|Karner|2002|pp=211–212 |postscript=. Karner, who was Rathkolb's student, expressed surprise that the press downplayed the discovery of such an important document and instead focused more on the conflict of the players involved.}}{{sfn|Brembeck |1999a}} There is, however, a reference to Orff's relationship with Huber (see quoted passage under "Denazification"). Orff told [[Fred K. Prieberg]] in 1963 that he was afraid of being arrested as an associate of Huber, but made no claim that he had been involved in the White Rose himself.{{sfn|Prieberg|2009|p=5391|postscript=; the brief letter is reprinted with English translation in Kohler 2015, p. 440. Orff on this occasion mentioned his association with Jews, namely Sachs and Kestenberg. See also Prieberg, Fred (1982). ''Musik im NS-Statt''. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag. p. 324.}} In 1960, Orff had described similar fears to an interviewer but explicitly said that he was not a part of the resistance himself.<ref>{{cite news |last=Wassener |first=Bert |date=8 October 1960 |title=Keine Parolen gegen Dämonen! Carl Orff: 'Jeder muß seinen eigenen Weg gehen' |work=[[Ruhr Nachrichten]]|location=Dortmund}} See also Kater 2000, 138: Kater cited this article without acknowledging the explicit statement that Orff was not in the resistance. He noted that it was very unlikely Orff had discussed [[Hans Scholl]] and [[Sophie Scholl]]'s resistance activities with them, as the composer had claimed; regardless, Orff said that he had counseled the siblings against taking any risks to their safety. See also Kohler 2015, p. 249.</ref>

Kater's accusation, as he termed it,<ref>{{cite journal|last=Kater|first=Michael H.|author-link=Michael Hans Kater|title=In Answer to Hans Jörg Jans |journal=[[The Musical Quarterly]]|date=Winter 2000a|volume=84|issue=4 |pages=711 (711–712)|doi=10.1093/mq/84.4.711 }}</ref> regarding the White Rose colored much of the discourse on Carl Orff in the coming years.{{sfn|Rathkolb|2021|pages=148 and 156–157}}<!-- Page not available at The Times nor at Wayback.<ref name="entertainment.timesonline.co.uk">{{cite news|url=http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article5366154.ece |work=The Times |location=UK |title=Carl Orff the composer who lived a monstrous lie |date=19 December 2008 |access-date=27 March 2010 |first=Richard |last=Morrison|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091005110355/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article5366154.ece |archive-date=5 October 2009 }}</ref> --><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/dark-heart-of-a-masterpiece-carmina-buranas-famous-chorus-hides-a-murky-nazi-past-1050503.html |work=The Independent |location=UK |title=Dark heart of a masterpiece: ''Carmina Burana''{{'}}s famous chorus hides a murky Nazi past |first=Jessica |last=Duchen |author-link=Jessica Duchen |date=4 December 2008 |access-date=27 March 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090118121551/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/dark-heart-of-a-masterpiece-carmina-buranas-famous-chorus-hides-a-murky-nazi-past-1050503.html |archive-date=18 January 2009 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Taruskin|first=Richard|author-link=Richard Taruskin|date=6 May 2001 |title=Orff's Musical and Moral Failings |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/06/arts/music-orff-s-musical-and-moral-failings.html|work=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=14 August 2022}}</ref> In some instances the debate focused more on acrimony between those involved.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Jans |first=Hans Jörg |date=Winter 2000 |title=Behind the Scenes: Composer Institutes and the Semblance of Censorship |journal=[[The Musical Quarterly]]|translator-last=Robinson |translator-first=Bradford J. |volume=84 |issue=4 |pages=696–704 |doi=10.1093/mq/84.4.696}} Jans wrote that "the scholarly debate on Orff and the Third Reich has taken on all the implacability of a criminal lawsuit" (p. 701). See also Kater, "In Answer to Hans Jörg Jans", cited above.</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Schleusener |first=Jan |date=11 February 1999 |title=Komponist sein in einer bösen Zeit |url=https://www.welt.de/print-welt/article566168/Komponist_sein_in_einer_boesen_Zeit.html |work=[[Die Welt]] |location=Berlin |language=de |access-date=13 February 2019 }} The author reports "sharp attacks" (''Scharfe Angriffe'') from Hans Jörg Jans against Michael H. Kater.</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Brembeck |first=Reinhard J. |date=1999b |title=Von zu großer Liebe und Verletztem Stolz: Wie der Chef des Orff-Zentrums die Ehre des Komponisten Verteidigt |work=[[Süddeutsche Zeitung]]|language=de}} 11 February 1999, Münchner Kultur, p. 17.</ref> In ''Composers of the Nazi Era: Eight Portraits'' (2000) Kater qualified his earlier accusations to some extent after reviewing the documents that Rathkolb discovered.{{sfn|Kater|2000|pp=133–143|postscript=. Note the inaccuracy regarding Orff's relationship with Erich Katz in this source (pp. 142–143): Kater wrote that Orff "made no attempt to resume" the friendship after the war, but see Davenport 1995; Kohler 2015, 81.}} Subsequently, however, Kater reiterated his initial claim regarding Orff and the White Rose without any reference to the denazification file.{{sfn|Kater|2019|pp=324 and 390 n. 106 |postscript=. See also Kater, Michael. (2004). ''Hitler Youth''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, p. 307 n. 40: "[Orff] told this [i.e., the alleged White Rose lie] to the U.S. authorities in an effort to get easy denazification clearance, since he knew he was guilty of collaboration with the Nazi regime, although he himself had never been a Nazi. Although his scam worked at the time, it has recently been exposed through research."}}

While Kater's account has been accepted by some scholars who have investigated the matter further,{{sfn|Monod|2005|p=54 |postscript=. Here the author concedes that Orff did not make the claim on the record, but accepts that he made it to Jenkins, whom Monod himself interviewed in 1996 (Monod 2003, pp. 301–302 and 312 n. 19).}} Rathkolb and others have examined the theory that Orff lied about being a member of the resistance and found insufficient evidence to believe it, noting there is no solid corroboration outside of Kater's interview with Jenkins.{{sfn|Rathkolb|2021|pp=148–154|postscript=. See also ibid., p. 161: "That it [i.e., Kater's finding] is based on the interpretation of an oral-history source without seeking or receiving further sources makes it a construction that is based on a scholarly untenable working method." Original language: "Dass sie auf der Interpretation einer Oral-History-Quelle beruht, ohne weitere Quellen zu suchen oder zu rezipieren, macht sie zu einer Konstruktion, der eine wissenschaftlich nicht haltbare Arbeitsweise zugrunde liegt."}}{{sfn|Kohler|2015|pp=245–256|postscript=. "An inordinate amount of attention has been placed on one alleged statement decades after the event by the then-elderly Jenkins, and the discourse has become sensationalistic" (p. 246).}} Writing in 2021, Siegfried Göllner was not convinced that the allegation about the White Rose lie had been refuted as unambiguously as he felt Rathkolb and Thomas Rösch had claimed, but "since the episode about the White Rose was never on the record or issued openly by Orff, it is ultimately irrelevant whether the episode reported by Jenkins to Kater actually took place or was a matter of misunderstanding. ...  Kater in any case attached too much significance to the statement of Jenkins."<ref>{{cite web|last=Göllner|first=Siegfried|date=25 March 2021|title=Dr. h. c. Carl Orff|language=de|url=https://www.stadt-salzburg.at/fileadmin/landingpages/stadtgeschichte/nsprojekt/strassennamen/biografien/orff_carl-v1.pdf|access-date=18 November 2022|page=9|quote=Da die Episode über die 'Weiße Rose' nie aktenkundig und von Orff nicht öffentlich aufgestellt wurde, ist letztlich irrelevant, ob sich die von Jenkins gegenüber Kater berichtete Episode so zugetragen hat oder ob es sich um ein Missverständnis handelte. ... Kater hat jedenfalls der Aussage von Jenkins eine zu hohe Relevanz beigemessen.}} In: {{cite web|title=Die Stadt Salzburg im Nationalsozialismus. Biografische Recherchen zu NS-belasteten Straßennamen der Stadt Salzburg|language=de|url=https://www.stadt-salzburg.at/ns-projekt/ns-strassennamen/dr-h-c-carl-orff./|access-date=18 November 2022}}</ref> In 1999, at the height of the controversy, musicologist [[Reinhard Schulz]] described the affair as a "scholarly cockfight" (''wissenschaftlichen Hahnenkampfes''), adding: "Far more important than a single fact would be an understanding of [the] connection" to Orff's life and creativity.<ref>{{cite news |last=Schulz |first=Reinhard |date=March 1999 |title='Alter Schnee?' |language=de |work=[[Neue Musikzeitung]]|volume=48 |page=48}} (English translation from {{harvnb|Kohler|2015|loc=p. 246 n. 192}}) Original language of second quotation: "Viel wichtiger als das einzeln Faktische wäre eine Verstehen solcher Zusammenhänge."</ref>