Wilhelm Furtwängler - finale of Beethoven 9th

[Imamummy2]

Furtwangler was in a difficult position in those times - he had a Jewish housekeeper who he protected and helped her escape to America. he was like a puppet on a string when he conducted but wow, he certainly got what was needed from an orchestra. An unusual man but one to be admired for how he handled his position during those times.

[MariaCaIIas]

what a bunch of dangerous, bad people...

[vmcla]

There's no joy in that.

Horrid, chilling and sad.

[zdenko1945]

Furtwangler simply did not have balls to say NO to Nazis.

But Marlene Dietrich had. She had more courage than Wilhelm.

[ABookwormAndProud]

0 :57

Is that von Schauffenberg?

[SuperSweaterVest]

...The women look so sad. I wonder why?

[SuperSweaterVest]

Amazing footage. I would have stood up and said ' I don't care for this nazi crap! Down with Hitler!" I wonder what would have happened to me...

[SuperSweaterVest]

The conductor looks like a puppet tied with nazi strings...

[tommy9882]

He is Furtwängler!

but I agree , lol

[aweitzer1]

i like the irony pointed out by other comments about this symphony being about liberty and the oppressive cicumstances in which it was performed. I wonder, was this a program forced on Furtwangler, or a chosen one?

But, at the end of the performance, when Furtwangler shakes hands with Goebbels, he promptly wipes his hand on his sleeve. Furtwangler was always anti-nazi and though he did have quite a high public profile and was treated well by the nazis, he was always an opposer.

[uhartchristian]

these gangsters and massmurders did hear this hymne of liberty as a relax . they did play good boys with a nice family life and then went out "working". signing the orders to kill millions of people.... its difficult to understand this today. I had my father in that spirit too and could not understand that blindness not to understand the crimes they did.... he never did accept that they were criminals. he hided behind that what they were told save the german reich whatever it costs....

[Metalloys]

Neelixs, where in the heck did you find such a recording ? Chapeau ...

Is that Goebles at 0:48 and Eva Brawn at 0:55 ?

[21436587abc]

nazis....

[sanserverino]

fürchterlich.... ich bevorzuge Toscanini

[don33x]

Beautiful!!! Furthwengler is the best Beethoven's conductor of the XX century.

The political or personal views or life of an artist are not important : if a work is beautiful is beautiful.

Caravaggio and Cellini where assassins:who wont destroy his genius for this stupid reasons?

[sstuddert]

It is a cruel Irony that, in that concert hall, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the one work which represents freedom, joy, love and unity to a higher, more perfect degree than any other, was performed infront of Nazis while Beethoven himself was, due his profound deafness, denied that plessure.

[jeches]

heil hitler indeed...

[Trollhumak]

i like that u see the nazi banner at the end xD

[jpp7233]

Who is he saluting at the end?

[sculptor1965]

It was almost like making use of Beethoven and the past to validate the present. Such wonderful music, yet we sit here in Nazi uniform. Beethoven would have approved! I think not. Interesting how propaganda and the mind of man works.

[rambeiro]

No soporto escuchar algo tan amado como Beethoven con un telón de fondo tan odiado como esas banderas nazis.

[Matt75003]

Is this an Ode to Joy or an Ode to Rage? Certainly there is nothing joyful about the insane tempo.

[jonathanwong]

You have to listen to the whole thing. o_0

[lostcontrol888]

ıha nerden buldunuz lan bunu tebrikler congratulationssssssssssssss :)))

[grossini1]

Gallop at the end ruined an otherwise decent performance. SS in audience didn't bother me. Art triumphs in the end. Toscanini and Bernstein much much better.

[lifenavigator]

A people blinded by power and lead with fear. Sounds very close to what we have in America today! This is a disgusting use of Beethoven's music.

[SugarTomAppleRoger]

@lifenavigator Hardly. Beethoven is recorded now in America as it was in Germany. In this audience, most of the people would be good people as they are today in the United States. Once we remove politics from the equation, the numbers of good and bad people are probably much the same in all countries. The difference was that there was a war on then. War brings out the worst and the best in people, whether they live in the US or Germany.

[Nick83Fairfax]

@SugarTomAppleRoger Even at their worst, the Allies (the non-Soviet ones at least) did nothing remotely comparable to horrendous crimes committed by the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese. Your post is insipid and morally repugnant.

[SugarTomAppleRoger]

@Nick83Fairfax Grow up. War is war. Both sides did bad things. The allies won because they were more efficient at killing. The victors always rewrite history. No one is fooled.

[Nick83Fairfax]

@SugarTomAppleRoger So the victors made up the atrocities committed by the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese? Are you off your meds? Or are you just a moral simpleton? What did the non-Soviet Allies do that compares to the Rape of Nanking or to the systematic slaughter of innocent European civilians? Were German officers desperate to surrender to the Western Allies b/c they thought the torture would less severe than if they surrendered to the Soviets, or that there would not be any?

[SugarTomAppleRoger]

@Nick83Fairfax As I said, grow up. Comparing is pathetic. Anyway, you insult me refering to "Western Allies". It was just England. We fought in the war also. I guess we don't count, as we lost battles most of the time. You victors, the "Western Allies" turned up on D-Day, after we had done the hard fighting. At least we admit we did bad things. The only innocents were those who didn't fight - countries like Bolovia.

[Nick83Fairfax]

@SugarTomAppleRoger Contrary to your repetitive, simplistic responses to my posts, I have a much more "grown up" understanding of the moral aspects of war than you pretend to have. Of course wars involve armies of men shooting at the guys in the other uniforms, but that does not make both sides in a war complicit in its start or perpetuation. Nor does it imply that both sides in a war are equally bad. And by the way, the Western Allies were the USA, UK, Canada, France, and Poland among others

[SugarTomAppleRoger]

@Nick83Fairfax So I suppose that allies like China, the Soviet Union, Holland, Rhodesia, India, Australia, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, New Zealand, Norway, and South Africa don't count for you. Grow up. Also, turn off the obvious brainwashing.

[Nick83Fairfax]

@SugarTomAppleRoger Read fully before you respond brainiac. I was referring clearly to the WESTERN Allies. Go read a book and learn a little history, smart guy. I mean how stupid can you be not to know what it means when someone uses a modifier to restrict what one is referring to. Not only do you not know history, you don't even understand rudiments of basic grammar! Hilarious. Who points the letters out to you on your keyboard as you type?

[SugarTomAppleRoger]

@Nick83Fairfax Go and get an atlas sometime. You are just plain thick. Sorry.

[SugarTomAppleRoger]

@Nick83Fairfax Just where do you get your info from? I have spoken to my father's cousin, who trained under Colonel Marshall. He actually met some of the Soviets and credited them for a lot of great work. One of them who he mentioned was a later a deputy, and fought against both the Japanese and the Germans.

[55ENR]

@Nick83Fairfax

¿Qué país destruyó dos ciudades con todos sus civiles arrojando dos bombas atómicas?

¿Qué otro país abandonó media Europa en manos de Stalin después de proclamar que había entrado en guerra por ellos?

Venga, muchachos, os contais vuestras historias entre vosotros

[Rachegotter]

@SugarTomAppleRoger I find you particularly lenient. Some cultures carry more bad seeds and more bad germs than others.

[SugarTomAppleRoger]

@Rachegotter My father was badly wounded in WW2, and my uncle died. Both fought against the Afrika Korps. My father was taken prisoner, and he liked the Germans. They liked him also. My dad never hated anyone - he only hated war. Wilhelm Furtwängler was a great man. I also loved the soprano Erna Berger, who sing here also.

[Nick83Fairfax]

@Rachegotter If by "lenient" you mean "stupid", I agree!

[55ENR]

@Nick83Fairfax

¿Tienes idea de las consecuencias de los bombardeos aliados sobre la población civil alemana? ¿O no quieres saberlo?

¿Tienes idea de las consecuencias de las dos bombas atómicas en Hiroshima y Nagasaki? ¿O no quieres saberlo?

¿Quién es el estúpido?

Hay países que ya se han enfrentado a sus propios monstruos. Otros tienen todo el trabajo por hacer.

[Nick83Fairfax]

@55ENR Give it to me in English or French, amigo

[55ENR]

@Nick83Fairfax Leo perfectamente el inglés, francés o italiano. Puedes aprender a leer castellano si quieres entenderme, o usar el traductor de google. Más rápido el traductor.

[hg21boy]

@Nick83Fairfax Well....You are just plain ignorant. If you knew anything about the second world war you would have known General Erwin Rommel was well known for treating POW's fairly. Supplying them with adequate food, shelter, disease prevention and refusal to ship them into Germany for slave labor. He just like the rest of the German Army adhered to their code of honor. The SS was formed in order to carry out the orders that the Army refused to carry out. In return they were the pet's of...

[hg21boy]

@hg21boy the nazi party. That is the main reason the SS was created, firstly to be Hitler and his political leaders body guards. Once in power, he saw the German Army was going to be very stubborn or unwilling to fulfill his poorly thought up strategies. So began organizations such as the Gestapo, SS and Ordnungspolizei. Hitler eventually got the Army to attack and invade, by making them swear allegiance to him. He knew they wouldn't break their loyalty. Though the refused any part...

[hg21boy]

@hg21boy in the holocaust. Many uneducated or lazy people will claim the German army had alot to do with murder etc. Russian civilians treated the approaching German Army as heroes. They in turn assisted the best they could as they were advancing. The SS saw civilians as low, or underneath them. This is because of the Brainwash style training SS receive. Where as the Army has its training manual from way before Hitler's rise to power. No where in the manual does it say to murder civilians...

[hg21boy]

@hg21boy I am requesting a possibly educated response from you not some more crap that people pour out of their mouths today. I should rephrase my initial statement, I do not know you, so I retract my "ignorant" statement, and resubmit "you are acting ignorant". Please feel free to prove me wrong.

[hg21boy]

@Rachegotter Pretty much any culture dominated by religion, Jews, Christians, Catholics and Muslims. Germans have been notorious for their devotion to their country before God...I guess those religious nuts can't accept that today...

[russellandrew]

"Deine Zauber binden wieder,

Was die Mode streng geteilt,

Alle Menschen werden Brüder"

slightly clumsy wikipedia translation:

"Your sweet magic, frees all others,

Held in custom's rigid rings,

All men on earth become brothers"

One wonders if even one person in that particular audience understood the message.

[weststarflyers]

Beautiful performance... very hard times

[urikp]

O espírito da nona não combina com o do nazismo.

[neelixs]

Concordo com você totalmente. Postei mais pelo condutor, Wilhelm é perfeito.

[55ENR]

@neelixs ¿Y cual es el espíritu de la Novena? No hay una obra que haya sido más apropiada por las ideas más diversas.

La Novena está escrita al límite del clasicismo, eso es lo que es. El último movimiento se va haciendo estructuralmente más inestable a medida que avanza, y el gesto imperioso cubre en falso la grieta.

[Redheadedstepchild]

Why did he continue to conduct after all the jews were removed from his symphony?

[bqsty]

See Istvan Szabo's movie on Furthwaengler, it might help you understand the complexities of his situation.

[fichjid]

Furtwänglers epileptischer Anfall is einfach fantastisch.