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Nazi Persecution and Music History

Revisions from a biographical and geographical perspective

The persecution of musicians by the Nazi regime had a massive, lasting and global impact on music as an intangible cultural heritage. In Germany, as well as in the annexed and occupied countries, there were considerable losses; yet in exile, there were also productive developments in all areas of musical life. The aim of the project is to revise and supplement the history of music in light of these global upheavals. In particular, it focuses on reconstructing the contribution made by musicians persecuted by the Nazis to musical life in the interwar period, documenting the musical output associated with persecution and forced migration, and analysing the dynamics of cultural exchange between refugees and the musical cultures of the countries of exile, with consequences extending to the present day.

Exilkomponisten - Weltkarte
Grafik: LexM-_Kartographie-Jochen-Schiewe-und-Anna-Lena-Kornfeld-HCU-Hamburg

The project focuses on musicians from German-speaking countries. A wealth of sources that have not yet been fully exploited – particularly unpublished and archival materials – still need to be catalogued. The biographical findings derived from these sources are incorporated into the »Lexikon verfolgter Musiker und Musikerinnen der NS-Zeit« (LexM), which is freely accessible via the University of Hamburg’s website. It currently (as of October 2026) comprises around 5,600 entries and over 1,000 detailed articles on musicians from all professional fields who, after 1933, were persecuted on grounds of mass ideology, politics, religion, ideology, culture or other reasons, and were consequently forced into exile, deported or driven underground. This resource, currently the most important research tool on the subject, will be integrated into the project and expanded. A newly developed application for visualising LexM geodata enables exploratory analysis and the identification of structural patterns and spatial correlations through interactive, data-driven visualisation and analysis methods. Building on this, sub-projects will examine overarching themes, such as individual countries of exile, occupational groups or bodies of work. The research findings will be presented to a wider public both at academic conferences and in artistic-academic formats such as research concerts.

The project’s research centres are based at the University of Hamburg and the University of Music and Theatre Munich. The project archive at the Hamburg research centre comprises the digital and physical archives of previous projects at the Institute of Musicology at the University of Hamburg (the Exile Music Research Group and the Encyclopaedia of Musicians Persecuted during the Nazi Era). The Munich centre cooperates with the »Ben-Haim-Forschungszentrum«, which is based at the Institute of Musicology at the University of Music and Theatre Munich and which also houses an archive. The long-term project »Nazi Persecution and Music History« forms part of the Academy Programme, which is jointly funded by the federal and state governments and coordinated by the Union of German Academies of Sciences and Humanities. The project is being carried out by the Academy of Sciences in Hamburg in cooperation with the University of Hamburg and the University of Music and Theatre Munich.


Project lead:
Prof. Dr. Friedrich Geiger (Overall project lead, Munich office manager), Dr. Sophie Fetthauer (Hamburg office manager)

Project staff:
Steffen Danek, Dr. Ya’qub El-Khaled, Sebastiano Gubian, Madeleine Onwuzulike, Bonan Wie

Duration:
2025–2042

Funding:
»Akademie der Wissenschaften Hamburg«