Yet however meticulously and thoroughly debunked such fantastic rewritings of the history and original of National Socialist and the origins of the Final Solution may have been, book after book continues to be written by ignorant hordes of non-historians, astonishingly even published by leading "academic" publishing firms such as Yale Press, loudly proclaiming the eternal truth of Nazi opera fantasies without ever providing a scrap of credible evidence. Instead, for them the repetition ad nauseam of the same fairy tale transforms their fantasies into The Truth.
It is deeply ironic that despite the fact that the founding father of modern Israel, Theodor Herzl, was a passionate Wagnerian who likened the founding of Palestine to the staging of grand Wagnerian opera, Wagner's music continues to be staunchly banned in Israel. The reason for the ban is because blame for World War II and the Holocaust has been placed squarely at Wagner's foot. In essence, the modern state of Israel implicitly accepts that National Socialism was a gigantic conspiracy instigated with the singular intention of realising Hitler's occult masterplan to "transform the world into a Wagnerian drama".
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| Theodor Herzl, founder of Zionism, was a lifelong devoted Wagnerian |
As we have repeatedly seen, not a single academic historian of even the slightest repute accepts such wildly speculative and crudely reductionistic ideas. The key academic studies on the rise of National Socialism and the origins of the Final Solution often fail to even bother so much as mentioning Wagner's name, let alone holding him in any way responsible for events that occurred a half century after his death. Historians universally dismiss Nazi opera fantasies with the same contempt they reserve for Nazi UFO and satanist speculations. Not even Israeli, let alone other academic historians whether Jewish or otherwise, entertain such fantastic notions as to the origins of National Socialism and the Holocaust in nineteenth century opera. Sir Ian Kershaw, the leading Hitler biographer, was to dismiss Nazi opera conspiracy theories as constituting a "gross exaggeration and distortion". Yet even disdainful dismissal by him along with numerous leading academic authorities has done little to stop the masses in Israel from going into hysterics in blaming Wagner for the disaster of the Holocaust.
This state of affairs becomes even more curious when one takes into consideration the fact that the most widely read populist monograph (universally dismissed though it has been by modern academic historians) on the history of National Socialist Germany unfortunately remains William Shirer's frightfully dated Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Notoriously, this book points the finger of blame, not at Richard Wagner, but at Martin Luther for having single handedly caused World War II and the Holocaust. If one were to take Shirer at his word, there would be more ground to ban the music of J.S. Bach in Israel based upon the fact that Bach was a Lutheran minister. Surprisingly, however, a quick look at Google maps reveals the unquestioned and totally uncontested presence of Lutheran Churches in Jerusalem today, yet by way of start contrast, any attempt to play Wagner's music in Israel today causes a hysterical outcry from the public.
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| Shirer's populist book blames Martin Luther for WWII and the Holocaust. It might as well have been titled Luther's Hitler: the Prophet and his Disciple. |
Worse still, Nazi opera conspiracies enjoy official Israeli state endorsement. When Zubin Mehta attempted to play Wagner's music in Israel, Dov Shilansky, deputy minister in the Israeli Prime Minister's office told him to go back to his native country, an outburst that was widely regarded as racist. In short, the myth that Nazism was an operatic movement intended to realise Hitler's secret masterplan to "transform the world into a Wagnerian drama" has become the core founding myth of the modern state of Israel. It is a myth that now enjoys total state ratification by Israel.
The true intended purpose, as we have repeatedly seen, of Nazi opera conspiracy theories, is that the left should be blamed for National Socialism and the Holocaust. We are repeatedly told that the problem with Wagner was his support for the 1848 pro-democracy movement, which is forcibly reinterpreted as a proto-Nazi movement. The setting ablaze of the Dresden Opera House by pro-democracy revolutionaries is regarded as a proto-Nazi act of wanton violence. Wagner's support for the socialist thinker, Ludwig Feuerbach, and Wagner's later support for the liberal and pacifist advocate of European federalism, Constantin Frantz, are likewise wilfully twisted into "evidence" of his alleged proto-Nazism.
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| “Dedicated to Ludwig Feuerbach in grateful reverence”. Wagner dedicated Artwork and the Future to socialist thinker, Ludwig Feuerbach |
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| Marx and Engels admired Feuerbach, regarding him as an intermediary thinker in the development from Hegel to their own system of thought |
Nazi opera conspiracy theories vilify socialists and other liberal thinkers, accusing them of being "Nazis", in much the same way that the National Socialists vilified the left with the accusation that all liberals were Judeo-Bolsheviks commies involved in a wider Jewish conspiracy, based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, to take over the world. Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf:
If the Jew gains victory over the people of this world with the help of his Marxist Confession of Faith, then his crown will become the Dance of Death (Totentanz) over the human race . . . That is why I believe that I am acting as the agent of the Almighty Creator. In that I warding off the Jews, I am fighting to do the Lord's work.
Siegt der Jude mit Hilfe seines marxistischen Glaubens-bekenntnisses über die Völker dieser Welt, dann wird seine Krone der Totentanz der Menschheit sein . . . So glaube ich heute im Sinne des allmächtigen Schöpfers zu handeln: Indem ich mich des Juden erwehre, kämpfe ich für das Werk des Herrn.
This was the central founding myth of the Dritte Reich, in the same way that the Nazi opera conspiracy fantasy is the central founding myth of modern Israel. In both cases, the myth enjoys official state endorsement despite its wilful right-wing rewriting of history. If the right once accused liberals and socialist of being "Jew-commies" spreading the "Marxist Confession of Faith", today the right accuses the left of being "Nazis".
The aggressive insistence on the legitimacy of Nazi opera fantasies, despite their outright rejection by leading historians specialising in the period, recalls the dogmatic insistence on the veracity of Holocaust denialist fantasies despite this theory having been thoroughly debunked. In both instances, we are dealing with an extremist right-wing revisionist historicism in a way that forms a mirror image of each other. In the one case, the fantasy is being pushed by an extreme right-wing ultra-Zionist ideology and in the other case, by an extreme right-wing neo-fascist ideology.
As for the claim that Nazi opera conspiracy theories must not be debunked because doing so would be an insult to the victims of the National Socialist regime, that is like saying that Nazi UFO conspiracy theories must be held sacred lest the memory of the victims of National Socialism be insulted by exposing it as total nonsense. Many of the claims about the use of Wagner's music by the regime have been debunked by historians as being retrospective concoctions and exaggerated distortions.
The more one dissects out the layers of ideological perversity lurking within Nazi opera conspiracy theories, the more it reveals unpleasant truths about the modern state of Israel that endorses and perpetuates such perverse conspiracy theories. It has already lead to racist outbursts against Zubin Mehta. Nor should the ongoing perpetuation of violence against the Palestinian people by the state of Israel go unnoticed. Worse still, the ban on Wagner's music constitutes nothing less than grossly illiberal censorship intended to lend a phony air of legitimacy to the most perverse right-wing political ideology and blanket rewriting of history.
The official adoption of Nazi opera conspiracy theories—despite the objection of leading Israeli and international historians—by the state of Israel is deeply symptomatic of everything that is wrong with that militarist state. It is truly a shameful state of affairs, one that would be making Theodor Herzl turn in his grave at the abject perversity of it all. It goes to show how much modern Israel has completely lost touch with the liberal and idealistic Zionism of Theodor Herzl.
Today, the question of the very credibility of the state of Israel and the credibility of Nazi opera conspiracy theories are so deeply intertwined as have become entirely inseparable. In so far as Nazi opera conspiracy theories remain the officially state endorsed core founding myth of the state of Israel, the credibility of this state looks frightfully tenuous indeed. However, it has reached a point where the political depth of Israeli commitment to the quasi-religious dogma of Nazi opera conspiracy theories is such that there is no going back. Like the National Socialist dogmatic belief that Jews were to blame for Germany's defeat in World War I, no rational argument can debunk this dogma, and its alleged Eternal Truth.
All of this serves to reminds us of the extraordinary perceptiveness of Wagner when he noted that both the German Wotan and the Jewish Yaweh Elochim are the respective tribal chief Gods of war and storms. Both tribes once slaughtered animals in honour of their God of storms and war in the hope of wreaking vengeance on their tribal enemies. To Wagner, worship of Yaweh is hardly any less barbaric than the worship of Wotan. "Israel" means "God fights". The militarist state of Israel today that worships at the foot of their God of storms and war is dearly in need of its own Götterdämmerung.
Indeed, today, more than ever before: Wotan lives!
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