Papa Menuhin Foundation Fires Papa's Son Over pro-Nazi [pro-Furtwängler, gasp!] Remarks
Richard Loeb
"The German branch of the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation has fired Gerard
Menuhin, its president and the son of the legendary violinist who
founded the organization, the Associated Press reports.
The Yehudi Menuhin Stiftung Deutschland asked the younger Menuhin to
step down after he was quoted as saying that it is "not healthy" to
continue to hold Germany responsible for the crimes of the Nazi era. He
ignored the request, and was eventually fired.
The comments appeared in the Deutsche Stimme ("German Voice"), a
newspaper published by the right-wing National Democratic Party.
"The Yehudi Menuhin Foundation distances itself completely from the
content of the comments made by Gerard Menuhin, and sharply condemns
the naming of our foundation and its activities in a media outlet that
the [German] Interior Ministry has said 'must be considered part of the
extreme right,'" a statement from the foundation read.
The Menuhin Foundation is devoted to music education and cross-cultural
exchanges."
La Donna Mobile
music and arts have been hijacked for political currency and
cross-cultural exchanges (or community outreach initiatives). Isn't
this what the Nazis did? Shame on both the left-wing (for political
correctness) and on the right-wing for sheer stupidity. Shame on Papa's
Foundation.
Count of Warwick
JC
and...@comcast.net
St. André ~ RoGers Brother
"JC" <goodby...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1132185378....@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> What did he actually say?
>
Matthew B. Tepper
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
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I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made. ~ FDR (attrib.)
REG
Menuhin's son forced to resign over 'anti-Semitic' interviews
>From Roger Boyes in Berlin
15 November 2005
The son of the violinist and humanist Yehudi Menuhin has been ousted as
head of the German branch of his father's foundation because of his
extreme right-wing views.
Gerard Menuhin, 57, caused uproar by suggesting that Germany was being
blackmailed by an international Jewish conspiracy preying on the
country's war guilt. He was forced to resign as chairman of the
Yehudi Menuhin Foundation (YMF) in Germany, which was established to
encourage the musical talent of young immigrants.
"It was a logical and comprehensible decision in this re-educated
land," Mr Menuhin, an Old Etonion who lives in Switzerland and
Britain, said. "But I'm not going to change my opinions because of
it."
Mr Menuhin is one of two sons of the violinist with his second wife,
the British dancer Diana Rosamond Gould, and he has taken over a number
of family responsibilities. Apart from his chairmanship of the YMF in
Dusseldorf, he sits on the board of the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad.
Until now his political views have barely registered with the outside
world even though he has a regular column in the Munich-based
ultra-nationalist National Zeitung. One of his more vitriolic columns
condemned Jewish "souvenir hunters" who gather evidence in Germany
to help them to lodge financial claims for wartime persecution.
"Apart from a few curious comments about America, we weren't really
aware of his politics," Winfried Kneip, YMF's chief executive,
said.
Mr Menuhin outed himself as a clear sympathiser with the neo-Nazi cause
in two published interviews this month. In Deutsche Stimme, voice of
the National Party of Germany, he used classical anti-Semitic language
while still staying within the boundaries of German law.
"An international lobby of influential people and organisations is
trying to keep the Germans under pressure," he said. "Some nations
- mainly America, but other Europeans, too - are profiting from an
obedient Germany."
It was unfair, he said, that Germany should continue to be punished for
its Nazi past. "The main tool of this endless blackmail was supplied
by the Germans themselves, although the tainted period of 12 years
really was only 12 years in over 2,000 years of immaculate
development."
The Menuhin family is descended from Russian Jews, and Baron Menuhin of
Stoke d'Abernon, who became a life peer in 1993, was regarded as a
great humanist who worked to bring communities together. Hence the
shock that his son should let himself be fêted by German parties that
stir up sentiment against foreigners and often glorify the Nazis.
In an interview with the National Zeitung, organ of the German
Peoples' Union, Mr Menuhin called on Germans to stop paying taxes and
thus protest at the outflow of German funds to the European Union.
"People cannot be eternally exploited in this way," he said, "as
long as there is a budget deficit, no German public money should flow
abroad."
Mr Menuhin, who describes himself as a film producer and writer, is
something of a maverick within the family. "He was the least
musically gifted," a family friend said, "and he suffered from that
emotionally."
There has, in fact, been a history of family sympathy for German
nationalists. Mr Menuhin's grandfather, Moshe, was a determined
anti-Zionist and expounded his views in the National Zeitung; he was
arts editor from 1968 to 1970 although he was aware of its extreme
German nationalism. He left the job only because the paper was not
anti-Zionist enough.
Lord Menuhin earned applause from German Nationalists when he played
with the conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, who had been a Nazi supporter.
But Lord Menuhin's point was to demonstrate that music can heal
wounds. German nationalists, however, regarded the gesture as being
something more, a sign of understanding for those who believed in
national socialism.
That, and the dedication of some concerts to the plight of German
refugees from the East, gave the Menuhin family some standing among
German rightwingers. Although Lord Menuhin had humanitarian motives,
Gerard appears to have interpreted his father's gestures as a family
blessing for his nationalist opinions.
The Yehudi Menuhin Foundation in Germany was set up by the violinist
shortly before his death in Berlin in 1999. Its brief is "to use art
to teach peaceful coexistence to children in social crisis areas with
high immigrant populations".
HOW DISCORD WAS SOWN
On a Jewish conspiracy:
"An international lobby of influential people and organisations is
trying to keep the Germans under pressure . . ."
"Some nations - mainly America, but Europeans too - are profiting
from an obedient Germany . . . Those claiming to speak in the name of
(Holocaust) victims have better networks than those representing other
groups of survivors. Just think of the survivors of murdered
Cambodians, American Indians or the Armenians. I am not the only Jew
who thinks in this way . . ."
On the need for a greater role for the far Right:
"The radical parties have to speak a clear language, offer
alternatives, especially now that the parties of the centre are
virtually indistinguishable and lack courage or solutions . . ."
On the EU:
"The European Union has swollen to gigantic proportions - a monster
that is swallowing vast sums, most of which are paid for by Germany"
REG
Ward Hardman
> Lord Menuhin earned applause from German Nationalists
> when he played with the conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler,
> who had been a Nazi supporter.
This article distorts the facts completely. Not everybody who stayed
in Deutschland was "a Nazi supporter." (Did Menuhin Sr. ever play
with Herbert Karajan?)
"Roger Boyes in Berlin" shows enough talent to work for American
newpapers or TV networks. :-(
--Ward Hardman
"The older I get, the more I admire and crave competence, just
simple competence, in any field from adultery to zoology."
- H.L. Mencken
REG
Best
REG, the real one.
"Ward Hardman" <ward.h...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1132343308.0...@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
WannabeHurd
> [...]
> Did Menuhin Sr. ever play with Herbert Karajan?
Are you implying Karajan was a "Nazi supporter"?
Joachim Pense
Didn't he join the NSDAP twice?
Joachim
WannabeHurd
Didn't know that. Then why wasn't he banned by anyone after WW II?
dtritter
don't know who implied what.
what was documented was that karajan joined the nazi party not
once, but twice, in salzburg (before anschluss) and again joined the
nsdap in aachen, where he became gmd in 1934.