Hans Schwieger

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Hans Schwieger , partly also Hans Schweiger , (born June 15, 1906 in Cologne , † February 2, 2000 in Naples , Collier County , Florida , United States ) was a German-American conductor .

Life

Schwieger was the oldest of five brothers and grew up in Cologne-Lindenthal . His mother died giving birth to her second son and his father married when Hans was 11 years old, their younger sister, Hans' aunt. Schwieger was considered a great talent and studied with Walter Braunfels and Hermann Abendroth . At the age of 21 he became Erich Kleiber's assistant at the Berlin State Opera for three years , then Kapellmeister at the Stadttheater Augsburg and in 1932 first coordinated 1st Theater Kapellmeister and then Municipal Kapellmeister in Mainz .

In 1934 he lost his job in Mainz because he had been married to the Jew Elsbeth Bloemendal Schwieger since October 1932. In June 1934 he married his wife in church in St. Stephan , Mainz. In 1935 he got a job in Krefeld . But he was whistled. In the same year he appeared on a list of the Office for Art Care as a music Bolshevik . In July 1935, Elsbeth filed for divorce because she no longer wanted to stand in the way of her husband's career and could no longer stand the pressure. His father also wanted to convince Hans Schwieger of the divorce and offered him financial support for the time afterwards. As a result, Schwieger stopped talking to his father for a long time. In 1936 he consented to the divorce on the condition that he be blamed. An extramarital affair by his in -law was the official reason for the divorce. This also gave him permission to continue to provide financial support for Elsbeth officially. From then on they lived separately and only met in the greatest of secrecy. The Nazis believed the couple's separation was real and three days later he received an offer from Gdansk to work as general music director . He got the job because the pianist Maria Koerfer was Arthur Greiser's wife and knew him from his time in Mainz.

Schwieger was offered the successor to Leo Blech at the Berlin State Opera, but he accepted an offer from Tokyo . There he established contact with the US consul Cooper after six months and received the necessary papers two days later to emigrate to the USA. In early March 1938 he arrived on a freighter in San Pedro , California. The American authorities wanted to because of fear of prostitution does not stand alone let enter women. After long negotiations with the American authorities, they made an exception and he was allowed to bring his former wife from Amsterdam to join him. Immediately after their arrival in August 1938, he remarried his wife in New York City Hall. At first he lived on his savings in Tokyo and later he worked as a music teacher. In 1941 he took over the Southern Symphony Orchestra. On December 8, 1941, one day after the attack on Pearl Harbor , Schwieger was arrested as an enemy alien and his house was searched. The public prosecutor's office later claimed that letters from Rudolf Hess and Joseph Goebbels had been found on him. In-law was under suspicion of espionage . He spent 401 days in a prison in Stringtown , Oklahoma , with many Nazi fanatics. On July 5, 1944, Schwieger was sworn in as a US citizen, and that same evening his wife Elsbeth Bloemendal Schwieger died of a brain tumor. In 1947 he married Mary Fitzpatrick Shields. In the 1950s he rose to become one of the most important orchestral conductors in the USA. From 1944 to 1948 he directed the Fort Wayne Philharmonic in Indiana . He then directed the Kansas City Philharmonic until 1971 . He bequeathed his estate to Appalachian State University .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Schwieger, Hans, 1906-2000. In: Library of Congress Linked Data Service. Accessed April 1, 2021 .
  2. ↑ Peter Lange: “I could probably assume that my career was secure.” The conductor Hans Schwieger - a search for clues. (pdf; 92 kB) In: Deutschlandfunk broadcast “Political Feature”. June 26, 2007, p. 15 , accessed April 16, 2021 .
  3. ^ Heather N. Paxton: Hans Schwieger - Part One. In: kcindependent.com. July 21, 2018, accessed April 25, 2021 .
  4. ^ Heather N. Paxton: Hans Schwieger - Part Two. In: kcindependent.com. August 18, 2018, accessed April 25, 2021 .
  5. ↑ Michael Dasche: Conductor Hans Schwieger - Two countries, two lives. In: Deutschlandradio-Kultur broadcast “Tonart”. December 3, 2015, accessed April 1, 2021 .
  6. ^ Anita Cast, JL Nave: History of the PHIL. In: fwphil.org. January 2012, archived from the original on October 17, 2013 ; accessed on April 25, 2021 (English).
  7. ↑ Peter Lange: “I could probably assume that my career was secure.” The conductor Hans Schwieger - a search for clues. (pdf; 92 kB) In: Deutschlandfunk broadcast “Political Feature”. June 26, 2007, p. 24 , accessed April 16, 2021 .
personal data
SURNAME In-law, Hans
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schweiger, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American conductor
DATE OF BIRTH June 15, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH February 2, 2000
PLACE OF DEATH Naples , Collier County , Florida