German dance and entertainment orchestra
The German Dance and Entertainment Orchestra (DTUO) was a quasi-symphonic orchestra founded during the Second World War, primarily for radio purposes , which played predominantly modern dance music and symphonic entertainment music . Public live appearances remained absolute exceptions.
founding
For ideological reasons, modern dance music had a difficult position in the Third Reich . Their production was a constant tightrope walk between the western-oriented wishes of the audience and the censorship of the Nazi regime, especially in the form of the Reich Chamber of Culture (RKK). Due to the lack of clear definitions, this was inconsistent and therefore also dependent on the personal taste of public officials. Jazz and later also swing were officially ostracized and were considered undesirable. After the war began, English dance music was considered intolerable, and the same was true for American dance music at the latest after the USA entered the war . German orchestras were thus in a difficult situation with regard to the repertoire. Furthermore, the dance music production was impaired by the increasing number of drafts of personnel as the war progressed. On the other hand, politicians claimed a psychological contribution to the war by the light music industry through energetic optimistic music to improve the general mood and to relax the front and home. In addition, the German listeners should be offered an attractive musical alternative to the music of Allied broadcasters (especially the BBC ), whose eavesdropping had been officially prohibited since the beginning of the war and was punishable (eavesdropping on enemy broadcasters ). Propaganda Minister Goebbels therefore commissioned the film composer Franz Grothe in September 1941 to found a large orchestra for the performance of modern dance and light music on German radio. Georg Haentzschel acted as co-director and Horst Kudritzki as assistant . The selection and recruitment of musicians was completed in April 1942. The orchestra initially consisted of 38 musicians, including, unusual for the time, only one foreigner. At that time, other orchestras had to make extensive use of Dutch and Belgian musicians, as German staff was hardly available.
Pass and work
The orchestra was supported by the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft (RRG) and began its work after a dress rehearsal on April 1, 1942 in the Delphi Palace in Berlin, initially in the Berlin Funkhaus on Masurenallee. For fear of the swing, Goebbels asked the orchestra to emphasize the melody, with the strings and not the wind section carrying the melody. From July 1942 onwards, numerous recordings were made in Masurenallee for radio purposes that were not available in regular stores. The recordings were pressed in small editions and made available to the other broadcasters in the Reich. In the meantime, many of them have been re-released on CD (Monopoly). When the air war situation worsened and it became more and more difficult to work properly, the orchestra was relocated in 1943 - it had its last appearance on March 6, 1943 in the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin - to Prague , which was little threatened by air raids , where its work continued until May 5, 1945, when Czech insurgents stormed the local radio station. Some musicians were killed and some were arrested by the Soviets a few days later. The majority of the musicians managed to escape. After an adventurous journey in two trucks, they reached the German border.
The direction in Prague was taken over by Willi Stech and Barnabás von Géczy , both experienced orchestra leaders, because Haentzschel and Grothe were busy working on film scores. Stech in particular had previously directed a radio orchestra on the German broadcaster that played stylistically similar music. As a member of the NSDAP, he apparently also offered sufficient guarantees for system conformity. Von Geczy - although Hungarian - enjoyed the highest official esteem of the regime with his brisk but completely jazz-unsuspicious dance music even before the war. In Prague, the orchestra had the most modern recording technology available at the time, so that it was mainly recorded on tape .
music
As far as can be judged from the sound documents received, the DTUO played predominantly swing-influenced, lively dance music that bears recognizable similarities with contemporary American big bands such as those of Artie Shaw , Claude Thornhill or the Army Air Force Orchestra under the direction of Glenn Miller . In addition to the wind sections, rhythmically arranged string passages play an important role. Unlike the aforementioned American orchestras, however, there is a lack of extremely hot (jazzy) arrangements and pronounced solo performances in the repertoire . Especially with slower numbers, the music is often confusingly similar to that of the above-mentioned American orchestras. The music is catchy, brisk, often swinging, but always stays within the limits of what was politically tolerated in Germany during the time it was made.
Afterlife
Many of the musicians of the DTUO also played a role in German popular music in the post-war years and at the beginning of the 1950s. So Kudritzki directed z. From 1946, for example, the Radio Berlin Tanzorchester (RBT-Orchester), which was founded on the instructions of the Soviet cultural administration, but had striking continuities with the DTUO in terms of both line-up and musical style. It was not entirely by chance that it also worked in the same place: in the Funkhaus in Masurenallee in Berlin. Haentzschel also worked for the RBT orchestra, then went to Cologne, where he became director of the small entertainment orchestra of the WDR. After the end of the war, Stech was taken prisoner in the Czech Republic and later worked as a pianist in Switzerland. From 1951 to 1970 he directed the small entertainment orchestra of the Südwestfunk in Freiburg. After the war, von Geczy moved to Munich , where he put together a new ensemble in 1952, which became the house orchestra of Café Luitpold.
Today's availability of sound carriers
Some of the sound carriers recorded by the DTUO survived the war, many of them unnoticed for a long time in the archives of the GDR radio , where they were "rediscovered" after the fall of the Berlin Wall. 83 of them were re-released on three double CDs from Monopol. A further 33 tracks can be found on two CDs from JUBE. Polydor released a double LP with DTUO recordings as early as the 1970s. Today the originals are mainly stored in the German Broadcasting Archive (DRA) in Potsdam-Babelsberg.
proof
- Axel Jockwer : Popular music in the 3rd Reich, p. 494 ff.
- Michael H. Kater : Different Drummers, Oxford / New York 1992, p. 168 ff.
- Christian Kellersmann : Jazz in Germany 1933–1945, Hamburg 1990, p. 52 ff.
- Horst H. Lange : The German Dance and Entertainment Orchestra (Booklet of the Monopol CD 57235083CF)
- Jürgen Wölfer : Jazz in Germany. The encyclopedia. All musicians and record companies from 1920 until today. Hannibal, Höfen 2008, ISBN 978-3-85445-274-4 (article "German dance and entertainment orchestra").
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ According to legend, the popular fighter pilot Werner Mölders is said to have complained to the later director of the orchestra, Franz Grothe , that his people would have to use the BBC if they wanted to listen to lively music. You have to be able to do something comparable yourself.
- ↑ Martin Lücke, Jazz im Totalitarismus , 2004, p. 96
- ↑ Michaela Hampf Ursula Lehmkuhl (Ed.): Radio Welten , 2006, p. 65