Herman Reichenbach

Hermann Rudolf Reichenbach (born July 6, 1898 in Hamburg , † April 20, 1958 in Andersen, Indiana ) was a German-American music teacher.

Life and activity

Reichenbach was a son of the businessman Bruno Reichenbach and his wife Selma, nee. Menzel. His brother was the philosopher Hans Reichenbach .

After participating in the First World War, Reichenbach studied music as well as mathematics and physics in Vienna , Freiburg and Berlin from 1919 . In 1922 he received his doctorate with a thesis on changes in the music instruments from the baroque to classical to Dr phil. In 1924 he became Ernst Kurth's assistant , then a music teacher in Friedrichshafen .

From 1925 to 1933 Reichenbach was director of the municipal folk music college in Berlin. From 1927 to 1933 he was also a lecturer at the State Academy for Church and School Music and from 1930 to 1933 director of the music department of the Central Institute for Education and Teaching. He was also the editor of the professional journal Pro Musica .

After the National Socialists came to power in the spring of 1933, Reichenbach was dismissed from civil service because of his - according to National Socialist definition - Jewish descent and his membership in the Socialist Cultural Association. Thereupon he left the country in the same year and went to Switzerland and from there in 1934 to the Soviet Union , where he taught at the Moscow Conservatory and became its director. The Great Terror began in 1936 and Reichenbach left the country in late 1937 / early 1938. He moved to the United States, where he taught at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg , Virginia . In 1948 he moved to Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania .

After his emigration, Reichenbach was classified as an enemy of the state by the National Socialist police. In the spring of 1940, the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin - which mistakenly suspected him to be in Great Britain - put him on the special wanted list GB , a list of people whom the Nazi surveillance apparatus considered particularly dangerous or important, which is why they should be in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Islands should be identified and arrested by the Wehrmacht with special priority from the SS special commandos following the occupation forces.

Fonts

• Changes in musical instruments from baroque to classical in Germany , 1923.
• Form theory of music , 1929.
• Modern canons , 1946.

literature

• German Biographical Encyclopedia , Vol. 8 (Poethen-Schlüter), 2007, p. 264.
• Hanns-Werner Heister / Claudia Maurer Zenck / Peter Petersen: Music in Exile , p. 209.
• Reichenbach, Hermann , in: Joseph Walk (Ed.): Short biographies on the history of the Jews 1918–1945 . Munich: Saur, 1988, ISBN 3-598-10477-4 , p. 307
• Reichenbach, Herman , in: Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.): International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945 . Volume 2.2. Munich: Saur, 1983 ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , p. 951