Deportation and Murder
Seven Jewish musicians failed to escape into exile. Five were deported to concentration camps and murdered: Moriz Glattauer, Viktor Robitsek, Max Starkmann, Julius Stwertka, and Armin Tyroler. Two others died in Vienna as a direct result of persecution.
Moriz Glattauer, first violinist since 1916, was deported with his wife to Theresienstadt ghetto in 1942. He died there in 1943 at age 73; his wife was gassed at Auschwitz in 1945.
Viktor Robitsek and his wife Elsa were deported to the Lodz ghetto despite intervention attempts by orchestra chairman Wilhelm Jerger. Jerger wrote to Walter Thomas, chief advisor to Gauleiter Baldur von Schirach, emphasizing the couple's poor health and advanced age. Elsa died on May 20, 1942; Viktor perished on June 10, 1942, from the inhumane conditions in the ghetto.
Julius Stwertka, aged 66 at the Anschluss and recruited by Gustav Mahler, was deported with his wife Rosa to Theresienstadt. He survived only weeks, dying in December 1942. Rosa was sent to Auschwitz in 1944; her date of death remains unknown.
Armin Tyroler, one of the orchestra's most celebrated musicians and a professor honoured by the city of Vienna in 1933, was deported with his second wife Rudolfine to Theresienstadt in 1942. In the ghetto, Tyroler founded a Jewish cultural organization and participated in concerts. On October 28, 1944, he and his wife were deported to Auschwitz. He was gassed two days later.
Paul Fischer died in Vienna's Jewish Hospital on November 4, 1942, at age 66, after suffering dismissal, forced eviction, financial hardship, and illness. Anton Weiss died on December 1, 1940, from a stroke suffered during eviction from his apartment.
Collaboration with Nazi Officials
The orchestra actively courted Nazi favor. It gave its ring of honour to numerous Nazi officials, including Baldur von Schirach, who oversaw the deportation of 65,000 Viennese Jews to their deaths; Arthur Seyss-Inquart, the butcher of Holland sentenced to death for crimes against humanity in 1946; and officials responsible for running trains to Auschwitz. The orchestra also planned internally to award its highest honor, the Nicolai Gold Medal, to Adolf Hitler in 1942, though no evidence confirms this award was given.
The New Year's concerts themselves served Nazi purposes. Conductor Clemens Krauss proposed the first concert, which Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels enthusiastically approved as part of the Reich's "propaganda through entertainment" strategy. The concert moved to New Year's Day from 1941 to 1945.
Replacement Personnel and SS Infiltration
Of the musicians hired to replace the thirteen dismissed Jewish members, approximately half were Nazi Party members. One particularly notable case involved trumpeter Helmut Wobisch, admitted in 1939. Wobisch had joined the Nazi Party in 1933, participated in the failed July Putsch of 1934, and became an SS member in November 1934, eventually reaching the rank of sergeant. From 1940, he worked for the Security Service of the Reich Security Head Office, authoring political informant reports on other musicians.
The orchestra expelled Wobisch in 1945 for Nazi activity but rehired him in 1950. He was appointed executive director in 1953, serving until 1967. In 1966, Wobisch privately gave a replacement ring of honour to Baldur von Schirach after the latter's release from Spandau Prison.
Post-War Denazification Failures
At war's end in 1945, only ten orchestra members were expelled for Nazi activity. Two were subsequently rehired. Of the 123 members, only four musicians were dismissed immediately after 1945, and six were pensioned off. The orchestra was collectively denazified quickly, without consideration of individual behaviour during the Nazi period.
Wilhelm Jerger, despite his role as provisional leader and his interventions on behalf of some Jewish colleagues, continued his career without significant consequences. His attempts to prevent deportations, while notable, ultimately failed against the Nazi apparatus he had helped establish.
Suppression and Resistance to Research
The Vienna Philharmonic suppressed information about its Nazi connections for decades. When Clemens Hellsberg wrote the orchestra's sesquicentennial history in 1992, he determined that 47 percent of members belonged to the Nazi Party or affiliates at war's end, that thirteen Jewish players were fired, and that six were murdered. However, access to the orchestra's archives remained highly restricted.
Historian Fritz Trümpi reported that when he began researching in 2003, the orchestra management rebuffed him "with a firm 'no.'" The idea of external researchers examining the archives was considered taboo. Trümpi gained access in 2007, but other researchers continued to face exclusion. Sources were delivered reluctantly and with delays.
Only in 2013, following critical discussion in the Austrian press and pressure from parliamentarian Harald Walser, did orchestra chairman Clemens Hellsberg commission an independent panel of three historians—Trümpi, Oliver Rathkolb, and Bernadette Mayrhofer—to investigate fully. The panel received unrestricted access and discovered new documents in a cellar normally containing archived music.
Public Reckoning
On March 10, 2013—chosen to precede the 75th anniversary of the Anschluss—the panel published its findings on the orchestra's website. The reports revealed the full extent of Nazi infiltration, the mechanics of Jewish expulsion, the propaganda function of the New Year's concerts, and the bestowal of honours on war criminals.
At its annual meeting on October 23, 2013, after hearing a presentation by Rathkolb, the orchestra voted to revoke all honors bestowed on Nazi officials. Hellsberg stated the decision required no discussion as "it was such an obvious thing."
The honours for mass murderers had remained in place for 68 years after the war's end. Some of these criminals had been seen attending Philharmonic concerts into the 1960s.
The orchestra's exclusion of women, maintained until recent decades, reflected attitudes traceable to the Nazi era. As of the sources' publication dates, the orchestra had only seven women members out of 130, the lowest proportion in any 21st-century symphony orchestra. Conductor Karl Böhm, who had exhorted the orchestra to vote "100 percent yes" for the Anschluss, reportedly said, "the Nazis aren't that bad—they want to eliminate women from politics."
Of the nine Jewish musicians who escaped into exile, only two returned to Austria: Leopold Föderl in 1953 and Ricardo Odnoposoff in 1956. Neither ever rejoined the Vienna Philharmonic.
Sources
Harding, Luke. "Vienna Philharmonic and the Jewish Musicians who Perished under Hitler." The Guardian, March 10, 2013. www.theguardian.com/music/2013/mar/10/vienna-philharmonic-jewish-musicians-hitler
Lebrecht, Norman. "The Nazi Origins of the Vienna Phil's New Year's Day Concert." The Spectator, December 28, 2013. www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-nazi-origins-of-the-vienna-phil-s-new-year-s-day-concert/
Mayrhofer, Bernadette. "Expulsion and Murder of Vienna Philharmonic Musicians after 1938." Vienna Philharmonic, 2013. wph-live.s3.amazonaws.com/media/filer_public/24/ff/24ffc10f-edeb-4ea1-91d0-c9f314e709c8/ns_mayr_01_einl_vertr_ermord_en_v05.pdf
Rathkolb, Oliver. "From the Organization Cell Group (Betriebszelle) State Opera to the Managing Committee (Vereinsführung)." Vienna Philharmonic, 2013. wph-live.s3.amazonaws.com/media/filer_public/6e/e6/6ee68e9e-901f-4295-b810-f1616b14a151/ns_rath_betriebszelle_en_v03.pdf
"Vienna New Year Concert: The Full Story behind the Tradition." Classical Music, January 1, 2024. www.classical-music.com/articles/vienna-new-year-concert
"Vienna Philharmonic." Wikipedia. Accessed November 27, 2025. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Philharmonic
Vienna Philharmonic. "The Vienna Philharmonic under National Socialism (1938-1945)." Official website, 2013. www.wienerphilharmoniker.at
