Hitler’s Maestro and the Cellist of Auschwitz

While the celebrated German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler long considered himself “apolitical,” and for a time even stood up to the demands of the Nazis, he eventually made what the music critic Norman Lebrecht calls a “Faustian” bargain with Joseph Goebbels. Furtwängler was able to ply his trade, and became a favorite of the Führer, while many former members of his orchestra were sent to their deaths. This documentary by the German broadcaster DW intertwines his story with that of the Jewish cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who was a young woman when Adolf Hitler took control of Germany. Upon arriving in Auschwitz, she became the cellist of the death camp’s women’s orchestra, and survived to tell her tale. (Video, 86 minutes.)