As the Red Army closed in on the German capital in April 1945, the Berlin Philharmonic played one last time to a packed audience who reportedly received cyanide capsules on their way out the door.
Berliner Philharmoniker/YouTubeThe Berlin Philharmonic performing in Nazi Germany in the 1940s.
As the Red Army closed in on the German capital in April 1945, the Berlin Philharmonic played on. With blackouts in the city and the sound of artillery fire in the distance, the symphony orchestra entertained a packed audience with a Beethoven concerto and the closing number from Richard Wagner’s Twilight of the Gods.
The song choice was ominous. Wagner had ended his musical drama with the death of Brünnhilde, a Valkyrie whose suicide brings about the destruction of Valhalla. It eerily mirrored the inevitable collapse of the Nazi regime.
At the end of the performance, members of the Hitler Youth reportedly distributed cyanide capsules to the audience. Four days later, the Soviets began their final offensive against the Nazis. By the time the Battle of Berlin was over, Adolf Hitler was dead and Germany had no choice but to surrender.
Throughout those chaotic few weeks, the final wartime performance of the Berlin Philharmonic echoed through the doomed city as a chilling omen of what was yet to come.
The History Of Berlin’s Symphony Orchestra
The Berliner Philharmoniker was founded in 1882 by a group of musicians who had broken away from their former conductor due to poor working conditions. The symphony orchestra staggered through World War I intact, though financial struggles in the 1920s and early ’30s nearly brought an end to their musical ambitions.
The Berlin Philharmonic once again managed to survive — but it came at a cost. Their chief conductor, Wilhelm Furtwängler, appealed to the Third Reich for funding. Joseph Goebbels, the chief propagandist of the Nazi Party, agreed to provide financial support if the group would act as a cultural ambassador for Adolf Hitler’s Germany. The Reichsorchester was born.
Finnish Heritage AgencyThe Berlin Philharmonic performing in Helsinki in 1941.
The remainder of the 1930s brought even darker struggles as Hitler began his campaign against Germany’s Jewish population. Four members of the orchestra fled the country as it became clear that their home was no longer safe for them. By the end of 1935, the musicians required “Aryanization cards” to keep their jobs.
Concertmaster Szymon Goldberg left the orchestra in 1934. According to the official website of the Berlin Philharmonic, Goldberg later recalled, “As a Jew and as a Pole I knew that I could expect nothing good to come from my remaining in Hitler’s Germany, and so I decided to free myself from my contract with the Berliner Philharmoniker.”
Five years later, World War II officially began. It would lead to even more loss for the Berlin Philharmonic.
The Berlin Philharmonic During World War II
Despite the chaos of the war, the Berlin Philharmonic continued performing, traveling internationally as the soundtrack of the Third Reich — which invited plenty of controversy.
In April 1942, the orchestra performed Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony for Hitler’s birthday. After the concert, Joseph Goebbels approached the conductor’s podium to shake hands with Furtwängler. While Furtwängler didn’t agree with the Nazi Party’s ideology, he had little choice but to greet Goebbels — shunning him onstage would have cost him his job, if not his life.
The handshake sparked international criticism, and Furtwängler ultimately had to flee to Switzerland anyway to avoid arrest after several other disagreements with Goebbels revealed his resistance to the Third Reich.
Six other members of the Berlin Philharmonic died during the war, either from bombings or suicide. And in January 1944, the Philharmonie concert hall was destroyed by British bombers, forcing the orchestra into temporary venues.
Berlin State ArchivesThe Philharmonie building after it was bombed by British forces in 1944.
As it became clear that Berlin was going to fall, Goebbels ordered that all of the orchestra’s musicians be drafted into the Volkssturm, the poorly-trained home guard militia meant to serve as a last, desperate defense. Then, Hitler’s personal architect Albert Speer stepped in.
The Berlin Philharmonic’s Final Wartime Concert
Speer wanted to organize one last concert for the Berlin Philharmonic. According to Gitta Sereny’s 1995 biography, Albert Speer: His Battle with the Truth, Speer had someone remove the musicians’ files from the draft board office and told the manager of the orchestra to prepare for some final shows. “When I would ask them to play Bruckner’s Romantic Symphony, I told him, it meant the end was near and the musicians should get ready to leave Berlin,” Speer reportedly said.
On April 12, 1945, the Berlin Philharmonic did indeed play Bruckner’s symphony. Speer’s setlist also included a Beethoven concerto and the final scene from Richard Wagner’s The Twilight of the Gods.
Public DomainThe orchestra’s final wartime performance included “Brünnhilde’s Immolation Scene” from Twilight of the Gods.
Wagner’s musical drama closes with the end of the old Norse order and the fall of Valhalla, and the foreboding atmosphere in the concert hall that night was palpable. Per Sereny’s biography, Luftwaffe officer Nicolaus von Below later wrote of the event: “It was unforgettable. I sat with Speer and Admiral Dönitz and listened to Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, the finale from Götterdämmerung and Bruckner’s symphony. Can there ever have been such a moment, such an experience?”
As the concert ended, members of the Hitler Youth allegedly handed out cyanide capsules to attendees. High-ranking Nazi officials would soon use similar tablets to take their own lives as the Red Army closed in on Berlin. In fact, the Soviet troops were already on their way.
On April 16, four days after the Berlin Philharmonic’s performance, the Red Army began its final offensive against the Nazis. The Battle of Berlin lasted just over two weeks. It resulted in Hitler’s death in his Führerbunker alongside Goebbels.
German Federal ArchivesJoseph Goebbels and his wife Magda killed themselves and their six young children (pictured here) in Hitler’s Führerbunker on May 1, 1945.
Germany officially surrendered on May 7, 1945. Later that month, the Berlin Philharmonic played again. Leo Borchard had taken over as chief conductor, but he would soon meet a grisly end as well. Before the year was over, he was shot and killed by American troops when his driver accidentally failed to stop at a checkpoint.
Today, the Berlin Philharmonic is one of the world’s most acclaimed orchestras. But its haunting past still follows it, and its ghosts are perhaps best defined by that one final performance in April 1945.
After learning about the Berlin Philharmonic during World War II, read about the Red Orchestra, the anti-Nazi group that secretly fought against Hitler. Then, go inside the tragic story of the band that played as the Titanic sank.
