Bernhard Bennedik

Bernhard Bennedik as a witness at the Globke trial in East Berlin in 1963

Bernhard Bennedik (born May 15, 1892 in Hamburg , † July 15, 1973 in East Berlin ) was a German singing teacher . He was director of the Berlin University of Music (1945–1948) and the Halle University of Theater and Music (1949–1952).

Life

Bernhard Bennedik came from Hamburg. His brother was the music teacher Frank Bennedik (1890-1939). He studied singing at the Cologne Conservatory . In the First World War he served as a soldier. Then he worked as a singing teacher.

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists in 1933, he was briefly arrested because of his Jewish origins and was banned from working . According to his own statements, he then worked as a businessman for ten years . So he ran a stationery shop in Cologne around 1938 . In the spring of 1937 Bennedik joined the Vereinigung 1937 , an organization which, according to the Nuremberg Laws, campaigned for the interests of so-called " Jewish mixed race ". He headed their Rhine-Ruhr district group. In 1940 his name appeared in the Machwerk Lexikon der Juden in the music of Herbert Gerigk and Theophil Stengel . Bennedik appeared as a witness at the Globke trial before the 1st Criminal Senate of the GDR Supreme Court in 1963.

From 1945 to 1948 he was appointed by the Magistrate of Greater Berlin as "Commissioner for the reconstruction of the University of Music " (HfM) in Berlin-Charlottenburg and thus managing director. The US occupying power saw Bennedik as an unencumbered opponent of the Nazi regime. Bennedik's brother-in-law Fritz Stein , director of the music college from 1933 to 1945, tried to influence him more badly than rightly. In the summer of 1945 Bennedik set up a concept for the establishment of a city music college in which the HfM was to be united with the city ​​conservatory . He prefers a model of democratic self-government . In teaching, the paper focused on the maintenance of contemporary and foreign music, chamber music ensemble play and cooperation with radio. Due to the lack of teaching and working materials due to the war, he also suggested that the magistrate confiscate instruments from former NSDAP members. In 1946/47 he had books, sheet music and musical instruments purchased in other German cities. Nevertheless, Bennedik was criticized from the start, for example by Paul Höffer , who himself had ambitions to become director. As a competing institution, he opened the International Music Institute (IMI) in Berlin-Zehlendorf, which was more modern but only existed for a good two years, at the beginning of 1946 together with Josef Rufer , Boris Blacher and Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt . This institution also became a new home for professors from the Nazi era such as Paul Höffer and Heinz Tiessen , who were unable to gain a foothold at the HfM due to Bennedik's personnel policy. Bennedik was one of the founding members of the “ Cultural Association for the Democratic Renewal of Germany ” and was a member of the Presidential Council from 1945 to 1947 under Johannes R. Becher . Among other things, he spoke out in favor of the reunification of Germany . His work Musik und Volk was published in 1946 by the Central Secretariat of the SED. He was also a member of the party's "Central Culture Committee" to coordinate cultural work in the four-sector city . Cultural-political tensions ultimately led to Bennedik's resignation as managing director on March 31, 1948.

Afterwards he worked in the Soviet zone of occupation , where he headed the Music Pedagogical Institute of the Friedrich Wilhelms University in East Berlin for a few months . After differences over school music education, he was recalled to the University of Halle on September 1, 1948 . From 1949 he succeeded Hans Stieber as director of the State University for Theater and Music Halle . He gave singing and vocal science lessons. Alfred Hetschko was appointed as his successor in 1952, probably for political reasons .

In 1967 he was awarded the Johannes R. Becher Medal in gold from the Kulturbund. 1972/73 he was honorary president of the Kulturbund der DDR .

literature

• Christine Fischer-Defoy: “Art, a stone under construction”. The West Berlin art and music colleges in the post-war area of ​​tension . Edited by the Berlin University of the Arts, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89462-078-1 , p. 435.

Web links

Commons : Bernhard Bennedik  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Peter Petersen : Jews in the musical life of Hamburg . In: Arno Herzig (ed.): The Jews in Hamburg 1590 to 1990. Scientific contributions from the University of Hamburg to the exhibition “Four Hundred Years of Jews in Hamburg” (= The History of the Jews in Hamburg 1590–1990 . Vol. 2). Dölling and Galitz, Hamburg 1991, ISBN 3-926174-25-0 , pp. 299-309, here: p. 309.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Christine Fischer-Defoy: "Art, in the construction of a stone". The West Berlin art and music colleges in the post-war area of ​​tension . Edited by the Berlin University of the Arts, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89462-078-1 , p. 435.
3. ↑ Jens Wehner: Cultural Policy and Popular Front. A contribution to the history of the Soviet zone of occupation in Germany 1945–1949 . Part 2, Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 1992, ISBN 3-631-44651-9 , pp. 1169f.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Bettina Hinterthür: Notes according to plan. The music publishers in the Soviet Zone, GDR. Censorship system, central planned economy and German-German relations until the beginning of the 1960s (= contributions to company history . Vol. 23). Steiner, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-515-08837-7 , pp. 82f./fn. 180.
5. ↑ “We have to take the fact that we have become a very poor people into account to the greatest possible extent.” Conversation between Milli Rose and Bernhard Bennedik in autumn 1945 . In: Christine Fischer-Defoy: “Art, a stone under construction”. The West Berlin art and music colleges in the post-war area of ​​tension . Edited by the Berlin University of the Arts, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89462-078-1 , pp. 262f.
6. ↑ Werner Cohn : Bearers of a Common Fate? The "Non-Aryan Christian Fate-Comrades" of the Paulus Bund, 1933–1939 . In: Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 33 (1988), pp. 327-366, here: p. 365.
7. ^ Institute of Documentation in Israel for the Investigation of Nazi War Crimes: Judgment against Hans Josef Maria Globke. Supreme Court of the German Democratic Republic, 1st Criminal Senate 1 Zst (I) 1/63 . Haifa 2000, p. 24.
8. ^ Sigrid Lekebusch: Distress and persecution of Christians of Jewish origin in the Rhineland 1933–1945. Presentation and documentation (= series of publications by the Association for Rhenish Church History . Vol. 117). Habelt, Bonn 1995, ISBN 3-7927-1522-8 , p. 88 / fn. 212.
9. ↑ Christine Fischer-Defoy: "Art, in the construction a stone". The West Berlin art and music colleges in the post-war area of ​​tension . Edited by the Berlin University of the Arts, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89462-078-1 , p. 244ff.
10. ^ Stephan Mösch: The used text. Studies on Boris Blacher's libretti . Metzler, Stuttgart a. a. 2002, ISBN 3-476-45305-7 , p. 164.
11. ^ Elizabeth Janik: Recomposing German Music: Politics And Musical Tradition in Cold War Berlin (= Studies in Central European Histories . Vol. 40). Brill, Leiden u. a. 2005, ISBN 90-04-14661-X , p. 124.
12. ↑ ^{a b} Andreas Zimmer: The Cultural Association in the Soviet Zone and in the GDR. An East German cultural association through the ages between 1945 and 1990 . Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2019, ISBN 978-3-658-23552-9 , p. 29 / fn. 78.
13. ↑ Christine Fischer-Defoy: "Art, in the construction a stone". The West Berlin art and music colleges in the post-war area of ​​tension . Published by the Berlin University of the Arts, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89462-078-1 , p. 261.
14. ^ Klaus Suckel: The State University for Theater and Music Halle. Memory of studying music in Halle . In: Handel House Communications 1/1999, pp. 32–37, here: p. 35.
15. ↑ Kulturbund awarded a cup medal . In: Neues Deutschland , June 7, 1967, issue 154, vol. 22, p. 2.