Das Kurorchester Bad Gastein während der NS-Zeit: Repertoireveränderungen im Zeichen der NS-Kulturpolitik?

This paper examines the Bad Gastein Spa Orchestra as a case study for understanding the interaction between music, ideology, and society under National Socialism. Spa towns in Central Europe, once vibrant centers of bourgeois leisure and culture, reached their musical peak in the early twentieth century, when almost every Austrian resort maintained its own ensemble. Yet this "golden age" of spa music coincided with dramatic political and social upheavals. Drawing on concert programs (1935–1941) and archival documents (1931, 1941, 1956), the study traces how the orchestra's repertoire reflected and responded to these shifts. During the interwar years, Bad Gastein was a cosmopolitan spa frequented by Jewish guests; after Austria's annexation in 1938, it was recast as a "healing resort for Aryan Teutons" (Kerschbaumer 1988) and visited by leading Nazi officials. The Gleichschaltung of cultural institutions brought a systematic elimination of works by Jewish and "degenerate" composers, replaced by ideologically conforming music such as soldiers' songs and patriotic potpourris. Despite these pressures, the repertoire mirrored changing social moods: as the war progressed and public enthusiasm waned, explicitly propagandistic music declined. The study demonstrates how spa music functioned simultaneously as an instrument of ideological control and as a space of cultural continuity, revealing its dual role as both political tool and reflection of societal transformation.