{"id":42907,"date":"2014-10-23T09:35:09","date_gmt":"2014-10-23T16:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bassic-sax.info\/blog\/?p=42907"},"modified":"2024-06-16T18:37:25","modified_gmt":"2024-06-17T01:37:25","slug":"german-saxophones-the-nazi-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bassic-sax.info\/blog\/2014\/german-saxophones-the-nazi-party\/","title":{"rendered":"German Saxophones & The Nazi Party"},"content":{"rendered":"

For years now the Internet has been rife with statements, rumours, supposed “facts”, and half-truths about what the German Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei’s (Nazi party’s) view on the saxophone was. The majority of things I’ve read indicate that the saxophone was banned in Nazi Germany, yet the Swastika-engraved saxophones produced in Germany, by German saxophone manufacturers, for German military bands would suggest that at least some form of saxophone playing was allowed and\/or tolerated.<\/p>\n

\"Swastika<\/a>
G.H. H\u00fcller tenor sax, # 37316 Source: Lowboy on warrelics.eu\/forum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Zer vill be no sax playing here… Unless it does not sving<\/h2>\n

A couple of weeks ago I happened across an article in the October 7, 1933 edition of The Milwaukee Journal<\/em><\/a>, which would indicate that the Nazi party was OK with the saxophone.<\/p>\n

\"Nazi<\/a>OK, so someone got a key element of the story wrong. Adolphe Sax was not German, but in fact Belgian. Nonetheless, this article made me very curious, and I began to do some research to see if I could find something that explained this article in The Milwaukee Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Rather than relying on any Internet sources, I went to a couple of books I have on the history of the saxophone. The first is a title most readers are likely familiar with: The Devil’s Horn<\/em>, by Michael Segell<\/a>. Although Segall mentioned the saxophone’s history in 1930s-40s Germany, unfortunately he offered nothing that could explain this 1933 article.<\/p>\n

The second book I consulted is titled The Saxophone<\/em><\/a>, and was written by former professional saxophone player, turned Professor of Music at City University of London, Stephen Cottrell. Success!<\/p>\n

Cottrell has written quite a lot about Nazi\/saxophone relations. Furthermore, being an academic, Cottrell has so many end notes in his book that I could be chasing them down for months to come.<\/p>\n

In a nutshell Cottrell explains that:<\/p>\n