Wilhelm Stephan

Wilhelm Stephan (born February 19, 1906 in Lüneburg , † April 25, 1994 in Bonn ) was a German conductor and music officer in the German Bundeswehr . He played an essential role in setting up and organizing the military music service and the music corps of the Bundeswehr and published the new collection of German Army Marches , which is still in use by the Bundeswehr to this day.

biography

Reichswehr

Wilhelm Stephan was born on February 19, 1906 in Lüneburg. Although he began training as a bookseller after graduating from school, his inclination for military music outweighed him , which led to the termination of his apprenticeship and his registration as a volunteer with the 2nd (Prussian) Battalion of the 16th Infantry Regiment in Hanover . Despite his small stature, Stephan was accepted into the battalion, where he completed his basic training with the 7th Company from January to July 1925 and then joined the battalion's music corps as a trombonist. At that time, Adolf Berdien was in charge of the music corps before he moved to Berlin-Spandau in 1927 . In April 1932 Stephan was assigned to study music as a master at the State Academic University of Music in Berlin , where he also attended the trombone class of the famous trombonist Paul Weschke . In March 1935 Wilhelm Stephan graduated with the distinction very good and was appointed music master.

Wehrmacht

After his promotion, Stephan took over the music corps of the new 59th Infantry Regiment in Hildesheim . Since the regiment was still in the process of formation, the orchestra had to be in Hildesheim as well as in Hanover , where the III. Battalion stood, gave concerts or played at the troop events, which turned out to be physically demanding for Stephan and his orchestra due to the lack of transport.

After the beginning of the Second World War , Stephan and his regiment took part in the attack on Poland , where he composed the presentation march General von Oven , which was dedicated to his regiment commander Major General Karl von Oven . Stephan and his troops also took part in the western campaign . After the capitulation of France, when the 19th Infantry Division stood on the demarcation line, Stephan composed the March Forward! , which should represent a musical implementation of the calls of the commander of the division Major General Otto von Knobelsdorff to his soldiers, which later led to the renaming of Parademarsch General von Knobelsdorff . The two marches were for the directory German army marches from Hermann Schmidt provided were not included, however, due to the war process. After the war, the composer renamed the marches the flag salute and Panzergrenadiermarsch accordingly. On October 1, 1940, Wilhelm Stephan was promoted to chief musician. Like his regiment, he was also deployed on the Eastern Front, where he organized concerts that were broadcast by the Kharkov soldiers' station. He also acted as an orderly officer at the regimental staff due to high personnel losses. Among other things, Stephan fought in the Rschew area , where the music corps of the Greater Germany Division was under his supervision instead of the fallen chief musician Guido Grosch .

On January 6, 1943, Stephen was transferred to Berlin, where he became a teacher at the State Academy of Music. He taught conducting , instrumentation , military music history and instrument studies and conducted numerous concerts with the music master candidates, including the farewell concert for the chief music officer and his first director Adolf Berdien . His former student, later a music corps leader and lieutenant colonel in the Bundeswehr, Hanz Herzberg, remembered Stephans with the following words: “When Stephan came, the sun rose!” Nevertheless, the courses were terminated in autumn 1944 after the university building was bombed. Wilhelm Stephan was promoted to staff music master with effect from April 1, 1943, and on November 20, 1944, he was appointed head of the music corps of the 16th Panzer Division , which was then fighting in Poland. After the end of the war, Stephan was taken prisoner by the Soviets, which he spent in the camps in Tábor , Brno and then in the Oranski monastery near Gorki . In September 1946 he returned to his family in Hildesheim .

armed forces

In Hildesheim , Wilhelm Stephan founded the Hildesheim Volksorchester, with which he always gave concerts south of Hanover, and was a teacher of instruments at the Hildesheim Adult Education Center. On March 1, 1948, Stephan became the first conductor of the Lower Saxony Symphony Orchestra in Hanover, and on October 1, 1948, he was promoted to director of the Hamburg Radio Orchestra . This position ensured that Stephen was recognized throughout Europe as a talented conductor who was open to new works, as evidenced by numerous concert tours and his activity as a guest conductor with the European broadcasters in West Berlin ( RIAS ), Munich , Vienna , Turin and Hilversum .

After the founding of the Bundeswehr in 1955 and the establishment of the first Bundeswehr music corps, Stephan repeatedly considered whether he should pursue the career of a military musician again, even though he already had a favorable position in Hamburg . However, Stephan reported to the Bundeswehr, and on June 16, 1958, he was appointed as a music officer in the Bundeswehr, although initially with the rank of lieutenant colonel for budgetary reasons . The tasks of the music inspector differed from the music inspectors of the armed forces before 1945, because a music inspector of the Bundeswehr was the highest specialist service superior, which brought the union of the organizational and professional top into the hands of a music officer and established the direct connection between the music inspector and the music corps leaders. The tasks of the music inspector included not only annual inspections of the music corps in the areas of military music and service, advising the Federal Ministry of Defense on all relevant technical issues, but also professional assessments and professional recruitment tests for all music officers as well as training and further education for military musicians of courses or conferences. However, immediately after his appointment, Stephan also had to address organizational problems such as the question of the ministerial or non-ministerial character of the music system of the Bundeswehr, which was triggered by the temporary relocation of the music industry to the Territorial Defense Command . With the establishment of the Federal Armed Forces Office in 1960, military music returned to the Federal Ministry of Defense, for which Stephen's presentations and letters to the competent authorities did not play the last role.

During his tenure there was a lively development and reorganization phase in the Bundeswehr music corps as well as their quantitative and qualitative increase from 19 to 21 music corps, which helped the international reputation of the new German military music. His greatest work remains the March collection of German Army Marches , newly created for the Bundeswehr from 1960 to 1962 , which contains the pieces selected by Wilhelm Stephan and his assistant Lieutenant Colonel Friedrich Deisenroth 145 from the earlier Prussian Army March collection and the directory of German Army Marches . The printing of the part books published by Stephan was traditionally done by the publishing house Bote & Bock. To this day, this directory forms the basic musical equipment for the military music of the Bundeswehr. On July 20, 1961, Stephan was promoted to colonel, which sparked a dispute between the Ministry of Finance and the Bundestag, on the one hand, and the Ministry of Defense, on the other, about the appropriateness of this rank for a stage management position and his pay . Nevertheless, Stephan took his position in the rank of colonel z. b. V. continues to apply until retirement.

Stephan was the first German guest military conductor to conduct a major concert with the Royal Military School of Music in Kneller Hall in England in 1963 . In 1965 he conducted the United States Military Band at a concert in Washington with great success . He co-founded the NATO music festivals, which take place in Mönchengladbach and Kaiserslautern and are still carried out in Germany today. On occasion he also accompanied the Bundeswehr Musikkorps during their tours abroad, such as the staff music corps of the Bundeswehr to Turin in 1961 , as well as in Germany, where he conducted the music corps of the German armed forces as a guest conductor and thereby gained their popularity among the population.

Not the last role played his engagement in the field of record production, especially the close collaboration between Stephans and the record producer Philips . This cooperation culminated in the compilation of German Army Marches recorded by the staff music corps of the Bundeswehr , which was initially produced as 8 EPs and expanded to 5 LPs due to the great demand. In addition to the copies sold commercially, these long-playing records were also given to some state guests by the German government as a special cassette. Furthermore, during his collaboration with Philips, Stephan cooperated with some selected music units of the Bundeswehr such as the Army Music Corps 1 in Hanover , the Air Force Music Corps 4 and the Army Music Corps 6 , both in Hamburg . Some of these recordings were later also released in CD format.

Stephan retired on March 31, 1968, for which a big farewell concert was held. After his retirement he lived secluded in Bonn , but provided help with musical questions and continued to consult the military musicians. In addition, the income from the records sold ensured a relatively wealthy existence in old age.

Wilhelm Stephan died on April 25, 1994 in Bonn.

Works

Works for wind orchestra

• 1939 General von Oven presentation march or flag salute
• 1940 Forward! or Panzergrenadiermarsch
• 1965 Frame melody for the Harmonized Zapfenstreich of the Royal Hanoverian Light Infantry

literature

• Hasso Krappe: Wilhelm Stephan . In: Mit klingendem Spiel 17 (3), 1994, pp. 140-146.
• Fritz Masuhr (arr.): The military music in the Bundeswehr. Military music history 1955-1975 . Bonn 1977.
• Joachim Toeche-Mittler: Obituary for former Colonel Wilhelm Stephan . In: With sounding game 17 (2), 1994, p. 85.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Farewell concert for Prof. Berdien . In: Deutsche Militär-Musik-Zeitung 66 (15/16), 1944, pp. 92–93.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Fritz Masuhr (arrangement): The military music in the Bundeswehr. Military music history 1955-1975 . Bonn 1977, p. 302.
3. ^ Fritz Masuhr (arr.): The military music in the Bundeswehr. Military music history 1955-1975 . Bonn 1977, p. 401ff.
4. ^ Bernhard Höfele: The German military music. A contribution to their history . Cologne 1999, p. 115.