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Beethoven
by Alfred Rosenberg
[translation from the German by Allen Knechtmann]
As can be gathered from the Myth of the Twentieth Century,
Rosenberg had an especially close spiritual relationship with the heroic classical music of
Bach, Beethoven and Wagner. From the love for the grand German art of sound stemmed this
essay which was published in the Völkischer Beobachter on 26 March 1927,
[1] the 100th anniversary of Beethoven's
death.
It is a remarkable feeling to know that while a world completely stirred up against Germany
watches, on March 26th in all lands and cities which still lay claim to culture, the
anniversary of one of the all-time greatest of the German people will be festively
celebrated. Hundreds of thousands on the 100th anniversary of Beethoven's death will listen
to his music, millions will read of him in newspapers and magazines, and even in Paris and
Warsaw the language of German culture will be heard again.
Like a giant from mythological times, Beethoven harnesses and unleashes the hearts of men,
and all the more so today. The entire world seethes today and longs for the willful, the
titanic.
From all the grand forms of the Germanic West there are derived two types of men. The one
desires to conquer from all sides, as if it were a besieged fortress, the secret of life, in
order to reduce it with a world-encompassing strategy. That was the spiritually emotional
approach of a Leonardo, a Descartes, a Kant, a Leibniz, a Goethe. In all of them lived the
longing for a universality of the all-encompassing spirit, an all-sided striving and
seeking.
The other type goes after the secret of existence with redoubled energy almost exclusively
from one side. He wants to break into the fortress in a rush in order to lay bare its
innards. That was the instinctive drive in Michelangelo, in Rembrandt, in Schopenhauer, in
Richard Wagner. To this second type also belongs Beethoven; he "avenged himself on destiny"
and declared his support for force as the morality of mankind which distinguishes itself
before all others. Our era requires, in its spiritual struggle, less a slow, strategic
method, than a one-sided, impatient attitude. If old values break and are born anew, all
forces naturally are concentrated willfully against a few points, and in the final end
against a center of force.
Just as it is certain that after the victory there will come a time of rhythmic reduction
of tension and the epics and "classics" of life will again begin to exert their influence
anew, so it is certain that today the one-sided will is in the ascendant.
And because of that many memorial days are now celebrated, but none which can unleash such
deep forces as the hundredth anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven's death. Whoever has
understood what essence also exerts its influence in our movement knows that a yearning
lives in all of us similar to that which Beethoven incorporated in the highest intensity.
The storming over the ruins of a collapsed world; the longing for a will to form new worlds;
the powerful joy achieved through impassioned sorrow.
"Run, brothers, your course,
Joyously, like a hero, to victory!"
Thus resounds the climax of the Ninth Symphony.
One day before long we will desire to transform ourselves, to partake in the grandest
expansion of our hearts, conscious that the German Beethoven towers above all the peoples
of the West and that the best among them form a center of genuine creative force. Only
then will we believe that Beethoven can and must impart for us the driving will to German
form. Because today we live in the Eroica of the German people.
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[1] March 26th, 2002, marks the 175th anniversary of Beethoven's death.
All people of European descent should strive to commemorate this great man's artistic
achievements on this signal day. Push away the refuse of our present Negrified and Jewified
existence. Listen instead to the Ninth Symphony, the Emperor Concerto or the Egmont
Overture. European culture knows no higher musical form than Ludwig van Beethoven's art.
And once you've imbibed from the cup of grand, high culture, there's no going back to the
garbage of our parasites.
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English translation copyright 2001 by James Allen Knechtmann. All rights reserved; no
reproduction in part or in whole is permitted without prior written permission of the
translator.
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