Herbert Connor
Herbert Connor (born December 5, 1907 in Berlin , † January 16, 1983 in Stockholm , Sweden ) was a German-Swedish journalist , non-fiction author , music critic , music writer and music teacher .
His career as a journalist and music critic began around 1925 in the Berliner Börsen-Zeitung , while at the Stern Conservatory of Gustav Hollaender in Berlin-Charlottenburg in from Fielitz Alexander studied music. Connor had partly Swedish and Jewish ancestors, but was influenced by German culture and was secular.
Around his time at the conservatory, Moses Parchament (1883–1977) and Kurt Bendix (1904–1992) also studied there . From 1930 Paul Graener, who sympathized with the National Socialists , took over the management of the conservatory, which had been a member of the Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur since 1929 . On February 8, 1933, he and a few others disturbed a concert by Michael Jary by booing him and dismissing his work as a “cultural Bolshevik music stammer of a Polish Jew”. For Connor this was an indication of a development that should not pass him by without a trace. After the National Socialists increasingly exercised power, Connor lost his position at the Berliner Börsen-Zeitung in 1933 because he had Jewish ancestors. With the help of acquaintances, he was able to work as a ghostwriter for the time being, so he remained anonymous in the background. Due to his Jewish origins, he was excluded from the Reich Chamber of Culture (RKK) in early 1935 .
On April 18, 1935, he fled to Denmark , where he was able to meet his fiancée Elsbeth Kempf in mid-May, whom he married in Denmark in October after this would no longer have been possible in Germany due to the Nuremberg Laws promulgated in September . Connor received financial support from the Niels Bohr committee , as he was unable to earn enough income to support himself through his work as a private German teacher in Copenhagen . He therefore contacted the Swedish public education authorities in order to possibly be able to carry out a livelihood job there. Between November 1935 and March 1937 he was able to give a large number of lectures in Sweden as part of the musical education of the people, at music and cultural evenings.
From 1940 Connor worked as a journalist for the Swedish magazine Vår Sång - Tidskrift för det folkliga musiklivet , between 1945 and 1953 he was editor there. From 1948 to 1950 Connor was secretary of the Committee for Music Education in Stockholm. From September 1954 he worked at the music school, from 1958 to 1964 he was the rector of the youth music school in Stockholm. From 1963 he was editor for cultural issues of the Swedish Press Service, a news agency. From 1964 Connor worked as a journalist, music critic and culture editor for Radio Sweden , where he was responsible for the music programs for international programs.
He did not want to return to Germany after the Second World War .
literature
- Henrik Rosengren: Five Musicians in Exile in Sweden: Nazism - Cold War - Democracy . Series Music in the "Third Reich" and in Exile , Vol. 19. von Bockel, Neumünster 2016. ISBN 978-3956750106 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Connor, Herbert , on: exilarchiv.de, accessed on May 15, 2016
- ↑ Henrik Rosengren: Från tysk höst till tysk vår: Fem musikpersonligheter i svensk exile i skuggan of nazisms och kalla kriget . Nordic Academic Press, Lund 2016. ISBN 978-9187351433 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Connor, Herbert |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German-Swedish journalist, music critic and music teacher |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 5, 1907 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin , Germany |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 16, 1983 |
| Place of death | Stockholm , Sweden |