From the gilt edged ivory towers that line Harvard Square, a music lover almost invariably takes a rather lenient view toward musicians who either laid out a welcome mat for the Nazis or at best knuckled under. "Art and Politics don't have any connection with one another" is the most popular synthesis of this idea. I had always thought that with some obvious exceptions this was true, but an analysis of the situation from another point of observation reveals the entire relationship between such musicians and the Nazi regime in a completely different light.

The musicians must be divided into Nazis and cowards. As for the first group, they have certainly not received the punishment they deserve.

Item: Richard Strauss felt superior to the Nazis but not to their money, spent his time writing music for Goering's wedding and Hirohito's birthday. He was, when I visited him last summer, entrenched in Lausanne's most chic hotel, a stooped, white-haired man who was rather ashamed of his position in the world during the past 15 years.

Item: Edwin Fischer, I was very reliably informed, was "made" as a pianist on the money provided for him and his orchestra by his former wife, a Jewess. But with the arrival of the Nazi regime he not only played in Germany, but ousted the Jews from his orchestra before he was even requested to. Fischer is now a Professor at the Conservatory of Lucerne, whose Meisterkurs for piano draws him 500 francs per pupil per year (ten lessons). He gives recitals throughout Switzerland and will appear in London next month.

Item: Alfred Cortot, Minister of Music for the Vichy Government, was hissed off the stage in Paris this month but performs with great success in Switzerland.

To call the other group cowards may seem harsh if, which is not always sure, they were sincere in their desires for political neutrality. But what their desires or intentions were is of little significance when one considers the effects of their so-called neutrality. On the one hand, they elected to stay in Germany in order to play, and to play they had pretty much to be good little boys. The great shout in favor of Furtwangler was that he "didn't throw out the Jews until he had to" and that he was responsible for getting many Jewish musicians out of danger (e.g. Carl Flesch). One noted English pianist, however, who was asked to join a group to defend the conductor, told me that the only reply she could make was: "Don't talk to me about Flesch; how many babies did he save? Of the little children who were taken from their mothers to be raised in camps and loaded into trucks until they suffocated from overcrowding, how many did Furtwangler save?"

The other aspect is the immense prestige value to the Nazis of those who stayed. Gieseking, for example, toured all over occupied Europe giving German-sponsored concerts; Thibaud played in France; and as one German-Jewish movie producer put it: "Up to the end of the prewar days, when people were still travelling in Germany, I was told, 'After all, they can't really be so bad is Furtwangler is still there."

Every musician who remained in Germany or occupied Europe to perform there must face before all other charges that of being a leader, looked up to by his listeners, a leader who proved unworthy of the esteem placed in him. To overlook the past records of such men simply because one likes to hear their music is unforgivable.