From the early weeks after German capitulation in May 1945, musicians made efforts to reconstruct German cultural life. In Berlin, cultural reconstruction included the rehabilitation of music banned by the Nazis and the return of international artists to the German concert stage. Musical “ambassadors” willing to perform in Germany and German artists engaged to perform for audiences of former enemies acted as agents of international reconciliation.
The erection of the Wall in 1961 focused efforts on West Berlin stimulating the creation of a veritable culture of reconciliation, which became especially apparent in West Berlin’s commemorative practices. Memorial music played a significant role in this development. Efforts leading to the creation of the culture of reconciliation were not necessarily German initiatives or restricted to Germans participants; West Berlin might have provided the stage, but the collected and collective conciliatory efforts were international in origin.
This presentation will demonstrate how music, the “most German of arts,” played a significant role in public rituals designed to promote both domestic and international reconciliation, indeed was a constitutive rather than reflective feature of culture in West Berlin. Exploration of the uses in Cold War Berlin of musical composition and performance, especially music used in public rituals of commemoration, reveals the development of a strategy for acknowledging the past, living with that past, and educating the young that has become an ongoing and significant feature of reunified German culture and identity.