Kurt Singer (musicologist)

Berlin memorial plaque: Kurt Singer and the Kulturbund Deutscher Juden

Kurt Singer conducts Judas Maccabaeus with the orchestra of the Kulturbund Deutscher Juden in the Berlin Philharmonic , Bernburger Strasse, on May 7th and 8th, 1934

Kurt Singer (born October 11, 1885 in Berent , West Prussia ; † February 7, 1944 in Theresienstadt concentration camp ) was a Berlin neurologist , musicologist and chairman of the Jewish cultural association .

Life

Kurt Singer, son of a rabbi , spent his youth in Koblenz . After graduating from high school, he studied medicine, psychology and musicology. In 1908 he was promoted to Dr. med. obtained his doctorate and initially worked as a neurologist at the Berlin Charité .

Since 1910 he wrote music reviews. In 1913 he founded the Berlin Medical Choir, which he headed until the Nazi era . In 1923 he became a professor at the State Academic University of Music , where he could both teach and research. Three years later his work The Occupational Diseases of Musicians was published . From 1923 to 1932 Singer headed the medical advice center at the University of Music and gave lectures on musicians' occupational diseases. From 1927 to 1931 he was temporarily first deputy and then director of the Berlin City Opera . At the music college he was dismissed in the autumn of 1932 because of alleged financial difficulties. When, after the handover of power to the National Socialists in 1933, numerous musicians of Jewish origin lost their positions under the law to restore the civil service , he founded the Jewish Cultural Association .

Singer emigrated to Amsterdam in 1938 . In 1943 he was arrested, first to the Westerbork transit camp and then deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto . There he died on February 7, 1944 as a result of the conditions in which he was detained.

The Kurt Singer Institute for Music Physiology and Musician's Health at the “Hanns Eisler” University of Music in Berlin and the Berlin University of the Arts is named after Singer .

Fonts

Items:

in the community gazette of the Jewish community in Berlin :

Die Welt des "Fidelio" , vol. 24, 1934, No. 41 (November 3, 1934), p. 3
Disput about Saint-Saëns' opera "Samson und Dalila" , vol. 26. 1936, No. 11 (March 15, 1936), p. 9
Dr. Singer explains , vol. 26. 1936, No. 21 (May 24, 1936), p. 22
The next Kulturbund premiere , born 26th 1936, No. 22 (May 31, 1936), p. 9
Kulturbund vorgericht , Volume 26, 1936, No. 27 (July 5, 1936), p. 3
Kulturbundbilanz 1936 , vol. 27. 1937, No. 1 (January 3, 1937), p. 4
Handel's "Israel" , Volume 27, 1937, No. 6 (February 7, 1937), p. 11
The Jüdischer Kulturbund advertises! , Volume 27, 1937, No. 34 (August 22, 1937), p. 3
How do we organize the house concert? , Volume 27, 1937, No. 39 (September 26, 1937), p. 17
"If I were King" , Volume 28, 1938, No. 7 (February 13, 1938), p. 5
"Die Schöne Helena" , vol. 28, 1938, No. 23 (June 5, 1938), p. 7
Help for Jewish authors , born on 28th 1938, no.40 (October 2nd, 1938), p. 4

in the socialist observation point :

Socialist Movement , Volume 12, 1937, No. 23 (November 5, 1937), p. 543

literature

Sophie Fetthauer: Singer, Kurt Bernhard. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , pp. 461-463 ( digitized version ).
Gabriele Fritsch-Vivié : Kurt Singer. Doctor, musician and founder of the Jewish Cultural Association. Hentrich & Hentrich, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-95565-256-2 .

Web links

Commons : Kurt Singer - collection of images, videos and audio files

Literature by and about Kurt Singer in the catalog of the German National Library
Kurt Singer Institute for Musicians' Health
Short biography of the German Resistance Memorial Center
Sophie Fetthauer: Kurt Singer in the lexicon of persecuted musicians of the Nazi era (LexM)
Kurt Singer Archive in the Archive of the Academy of Arts, Berlin

Individual evidence

^ After Charlotte Salomon - Life or Theater? The life picture of a Jewish painter from Berlin 1917-1943. Images and traces, notes, conversations, documents. Das Arsenal, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3921810760 , p. 160
↑ ^a ^b ^c Kurt Singer in the dictionary of persecuted musicians of the Nazi era (LexM)
^ Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 572, contradicting information, according to Fred K. Prieberg : Handbook of German Musicians 1933–1945 , CD- Rom-Lexikon, Kiel 2004, p. 6.636, Simon was artistic director from 1930 to 1932.

personal data
SURNAME	Singer, Kurt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German neurologist and musicologist
DATE OF BIRTH	October 11, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH	Berent
DATE OF DEATH	February 7, 1944
Place of death	Theresienstadt concentration camp

[1] After Charlotte Salomon - Life or Theater? The life picture of a Jewish painter from Berlin 1917-1943. Images and traces, notes, conversations, documents. Das Arsenal, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3921810760 , p. 160

[Lexikon-2] Kurt Singer in the dictionary of persecuted musicians of the Nazi era (LexM)

[3] Ernst Klee : The culture lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 572, contradicting information, according to Fred K. Prieberg : Handbook of German Musicians 1933–1945 , CD- Rom-Lexikon, Kiel 2004, p. 6.636, Simon was artistic director from 1930 to 1932.